Antalya, Turkey, May 11, 2016 - While the women were playing two rounds of “money ball” here Wednesday at BeachPark, the 32 teams in the 24-match men’s qualifier was being staged at the Akdeniz University courts as pairs from Belarus, Qatar and the United States made break-throughs to advance to the opening Main Draw matches Thursday in the US$150,000 Antalya Open.
The 13th event on the men’s 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour calendar, the Antalya Open runs through Sunday when the “final four” male pairs compete for the medals as the winning team will share the $11,000 first-place prize. The women’s medal matches will be played Saturday on the BeachPark center court.
Posting Wednesday’s best qualifying results were 12th-seeded Aliaksandr Dziadkou/Aliaksandr Kavalenka of Belarus and 16th-seeded Jeremy Casebeer/Derek Olson of the United States as the two pairs eliminated the fifth- and first-seeded teams to advance to Thursday’s schedule where 32 men’s pool play matches will be played while the women’s will have their final group contests to set the lineup for Friday’s three rounds of elimination confrontations.
Belarus's Aliaksandr Kavalenka (right) hits at the net against Norway's Kvamsdal Morten
Also breaking through was 11th-seeded Julio Nascimento/Ahmed Tijan of Qatar, who advanced from a FIVB World Tour qualifier for the first-time in five attempts. With 27th-seeded Oleksiy Denin/Sergiy Popov upsetting sixth-seeded Kristoffer Abell/Peter Kildegaard of Denmark 2-1 (14-21, 21-15, 15-11) in a 48-minute first-round match Wednesday, Nascimento and Tijan advanced with a 2-0 (21-11, 21-19) victory over the Ukrainians.
Qualifying excitement for Qatar's Ahmed Tijan
As both teams won two matches Wednesday, Casebeer and Olson advanced by defeating top-seeded Dries Koekelkoren/Tom van Walle of Belgium 2-1 (21-18, 21-23, 15-13) in 60 minutes while Dziadkou and Kavalenka ousted fifth-seeded Morten Kvamsdal/Christian Sorum of Norway 2-1 (17-21, 22-20, 15-11) in 45 minutes.
Two teams from Norway qualified Wednesday, including third-seeded Geir Eithun/Iver Horrem and fourth-seeded Oivind Hordvik/Bjarte Usken along with second-seeded Philip Gabathuler/Mirco Gerson of Switzerland, seventh-seeded Georgios Kotsilianos/Nikos Zoupanis of Greece and eighth-seeded Michal Bryl/Kacper Kujawiak of Poland.