Antalya, Turkey, May 10, 2015 - Although the end of the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour season is five months away, it is never too early to talk about the best players and top newcomers on the international circuit.
Quick linksFIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Antalya Open
Men - Qualification resultsWomen - Qualification resultsMen - Main draw resultsWomen - Main draw resultsOne of the unsung awards each season is the rookie-of-the-year honour that has been given over the years to the likes of Christiaan Varenhorst (2012) of the Netherlands, Alvaro Filho (2013) of Brazil and Tri Bourne (2014) of the United States. All three will be competing here this week in the men’s $150,000 Antalya Open at the BeachPark and Akdeniz University courts.
Two of the prospects for this year’s honor for the top rookie might be 26-old year old Stefan Basta and/or 21-year old Lazar Kolaric of Serbia, who will be competing Wednesday in the men’s Qualification Tournament. While Basta has been playing competitively since 2009 at the European Confederation events and Kolaric began playing in 2014.
The Serbians will be one of the featured pairs in Wednesday’s men’s qualifier where the eight teams will advance from the preliminary rounds to Thursday’s opening Main Draw pool play matches in the second annual Antalya Open. Basta and Kolaric have posted a 7-1 match mark in their previous five FIVB World Tour qualifiers with their only setback being to a Czech Republic team in the 2015 Antalya Open last October.
The Serbians have advanced from the international qualifier in their last four appearances, including last week in Russia where Basta and Kolaric placed 17th in the Sochi Main Draw by winning two of five matches as the 30th-seeded pair in the 32-team “money” rounds. It was their best FIVB World Tour finish highlighted by their first-ever Main Draw win.
The Main Draw success was a 2-1 (21-14, 17-21, 15-12) pool play win in 47 minutes over 14th-seeded Isaac Kapa/Christopher McHugh of Australia, who are three-time (2013, 2014 and 2016) Asian Volleyball Confederation champions.
“We were surprised how well they played,” said the 26-year old McHugh, who was playing for the first-time this season in Europe with Kapa. “They were steady in our match and sided out consistently. Since we had never played them, they caught us off-guard. We were a little out-of-sorts since it was our first international match in three months, so the Serbians were better prepared to play. They will surprise some of the more experienced teams this year.”
Americans Bourne and John Hyden defeated Basta and Kolaric 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) in their first pool play match last Wednesday in the Sochi Open and were impressed. “The big guy (Basta, 199 cm, 6'6") is a good blocker and the younger play (Kolaric) sided out well,” said the 43-year old Hyden. “The key now is that since the Serbians are making a name for themselves, they will not surprise anyone again. Everyone will be ready to play them.”
When asked about playing for his country on the FIVB World Tour, Kolaric said “everyone in the world knows about the Serbian indoor Volleyball teams. One of our goals is to create more interest in Serbia for Beach Volleyball. We also want to spend as much time on sand as possible to improve our game with a goal to play Beach Volleyball at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.”
As for the 2015-2016 FIVB season, Kolaric said “this is our first season on the tour and expectations weren’t very high. We wanted to qualify to the Main Draw in at least one FIVB “open” and now we have qualified for four. We are aiming to repeat the Sochi result and place ninth this week. Since we have nothing to lose, we are playing very relaxed.”
Basta and Kolaric played Volleyball for many years with most of their experience with Vojvodina from their native Novi Sad. The pair started playing together on the beach last year and became champions of Serbia. With the title, the Serbian Volleyball Federation of Serbia offered Basta and Kolaric an opportunity to train the whole year on sand and play CEV and FIVB World Tour.
“We immediately accepted that federation’s offer,” said Kolaric. “We are really happy to be first pair in history of Serbian Beach Volleyball to be fully supported by the national federation. We have a coach (Nenad Tatic) who is always with us and is seriously preparing us for everything we would need to play our best.”
The Antalya Open is the part of the qualifying process for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games to be played on iconic Copacabana August 6-18. This week’s event will be the 27th of 30 men’s events in the Rio qualifying process and the 25th of 28 women’s stops.
Tuesday’s action featured the women’s qualifier and the men’s country quota matches. The men’s “money” rounds will start with pool play matches Thursday and Friday and elimination Saturday. The semifinals and medal contests will be played Sunday. The women’s Main Draw starts Wednesday with elimination matches Friday and the “final four” meetings Saturday. The winning teams in the Antalya Open will share the $11,000 first-place prizes.
A new men’s champion will be crowned Sunday as only 2015 bronze medal Martins Plavins/Haralds Regza of Latvia are the only men’s podium-placing pair from last October’s event in the field. In the 2015 gold medal match, Alex Ranghieri/Adrian Carambula of Italy defeated Juan Virgen/Lombardo Ontiveros of Mexico 2-0 (21-19, 21-16) in the 39-minute finale. Plavins and Regza scored a 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) bronze medal win in 33 minutes over the Grimalt cousins (Esteban and Marco) of Chile.
Led by Murat Giginoglu and Volkan Gogtepe, host Turkey will have four women and four men’s tandems in the Antalya Open. Giginoglu and Gogtepe, who placed ninth in the inaugural BeachPark event, are the 12th-ranked men’s team on the FIVB World Tour.
Other Turkish men’s teams in the Antalya Open Main Draw are Devrim Alibaba/Kemal Sah and Hasan Mermer/Sefa Urlu. The host country qualifying men’s team will be Ali Nurettin/Safak Sezer. Representing Turkey in the women’s “money rounds” will be Merve Aktas/Esra Koksalan, Atasoy Burcu/Selin Yurtsever and Resmiye Cakmak/Yaren Sencel. Playing in the women’s qualifier will be Ebru Karayilan/Aleyna Vence.