Women’s qualifier, men’s country quota matches Tuesday launch Antalya Open

Antalya, Turkey, May 9, 2016 - After events in Qatar, China, Brazil and Russia, the “globetrotting” players on the FIVB World Tour will start playing here Tuesday in the second annual Antalya Open with a 23-team women’s qualification tournament and a 10-team men’s country quota playoff on the BeachPark courts.

Quick links
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Antalya Open
Men - Qualification results
Women - Qualification results
Men - Main draw results
Women - Main draw results

The FIVB World Tour stop is the second-time that the world’s best Beach Volleyball is returning to the BeachPark courts in an eight-month period as the inaugural Antalya Open was held here last October 20-25 with teams from the Czech Republic and Italy capturing the women’s and men’s gold medals, respectively.

RIO 2016 OLYMPIC QUALIFYING EVENT

The US$150,000 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 25th of 28 women’s events in the Rio qualifying process and the 27th of 30 men’s stops.

Tuesday’s qualifier will advance eight teams to the women’s Main Draw where 48 pool play matches will be contested Wednesday and Thursday followed by three rounds of elimination bracket competition Friday to set the lineup for Saturday’s semi-finals and medal matches.

The men’s schedule in the FIVB World Tour event will feature a qualifier Wednesday followed by Main Draw pool play matches Thursday and Friday and elimination Saturday.  The semi-finals and medal contests will be played Sunday.  The winning teams in the Antalya Open will share the $11,000 first-place prizes.

TOP INAUGURAL PAIRS RETURN

The top four finishers from the 2015 Antalya Open are in the field this week, including Barbora Hermannova/Marketa Slukova of the Czech Republic, Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth of Italy, Emily Day/Jen Kessy of the United States and Ana Gallay/Georgina Klug of Argentina.  Menegatti and Orsi Toth are currently the No. 1 team on the women’s 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour ranking list.

Playing in only their fifth event together here last October, Hermannova and Slukova defeated Italians Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) in the 40-minute gold medal match.  After losing in the semi-finals to the Czech girls, Day/Kessy rallied to defeated Gallay/Klug 2-1 (18-21, 21-14, 15-13) in the 62-minute bronze medal match.

Since winning here last October, the Czech pair have posted three-straight 17th-place finishes during a four-week swing in late February and early March in Brazil at stops in Maceio, Rio de Janeiro and Vitoria.  Hermannova has been slowed by a medical condition that forced the pair to miss FIVB World Tour stops in China (Xiamen and Fuzhou), Brazil (Fortaleza) and last week in Sochi, Russia.

“I don’t know how sharp we will be this week as we have not had a lot of training due to Barbora’s medical condition,” said Czech coach Simon Nausch, who played in 47 FIVB events (1999-2009).  “The key for us is to continue our preparations for next month’s European Continental Cup finals in Norway (Stavanger, June 22-26).”

With the top 15 teams, excluding Brazilians, from the FIVB World Tour with a maximum of two pairs per country will qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympics, the winning teams from each of the five international confederations will earn a spot in the Copacabana quadrennial.

Brazil is guaranteed two of the 24 berths per gender in the Olympics due to winning the world championships last July in The Hague along with being the host country.  The second- and third-place finishers from each confederation’s Continental Cup competition qualify for the Continental Cup Finals July 6-10 in Sochi where the last two spots will be determined for Rio.

NEW MEN'S CHAMPION

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.