Mason, Ohio, USA, May 19, 2016 – USA’s top-seeded Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson continue to keep their goal of playing in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games within reach as they completed their undefeated pool play Thursday by winning the final two of their three pool play matches Thursday over team from Poland and Austria in the double-gender FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP.
The event, which is one of the last three Olympic qualifiers through the FIVB World Tour is being held through Saturday at the prominent Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio and the seventh tournament in the stretch of eight straight events on the FIVB World Tour. Next week the FIVB World Tour returns to Russia for the double-gender FIVB Moscow Grand Slam.
Quick linksFIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Cincinatti Open
Men - Qualification resultsWomen - Qualification resultsMen - Main draw resultsWomen - Main draw resultsWith seven teams going 3-0 and one going 2-1, three teams from host country United States and one each from Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Brazil all earned a bye by virtue of winning their respective pools into the second elimination round on Friday.
The double-gender $150,000 FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP, started Tuesday and concludes on Saturday. It is the 14th men’s event of the season and 11th women’s stop on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour that started with three events at the end of 2015.
Currently sixth in the provisional Olympic Rankings through the FIVB World Tour, USA’s Gibb/Patterson closed out their pool play matches with a pair of match wins on Thursday. First, the opened the day by defeating Poland’s 17th-seeded Michal Bryl/Kacper Kosiak in straight sets, 21-18, 21-13 in only 31 minutes. They completed their tri-fecta by beating Austria’s 16th-seeded Thomas Kunert/Christoph Dressler in two sets again, 21-14, 21-15 in just 29 minutes.
Gibb commented after the win against the Austrian duo, “It's a big win for us. Winning pools is huge. There are a lot of good teams out here, so winning is big. It took a little adjusting to switch back from the AVP balls to the FIVB Mikasa balls. The first couple of matches we had a tough time passing. But in this second match we got into a groove there.”
USA had three teams go undefeated in pool play. In addition to Gibb/Patterson, also 3-0 to win their respective pools were USA’s second-seeded Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena and USA’s surprising 19th-seeded brothers Trevor Crabb/Taylor Crabb.
Seldom at a loss for words, USA’s Lucena said after his team’s win over Poland, “You never want to lose, it's very good that we won. They played tough. It was windy and we had a couple chances to put the ball away and they played very well. In the second set, Phil got some stuffs, touches off the block and a couple sets in transition. We went on a run, which was good, it was 7-7 then went to 13-7. That made the difference. I thought they set him off a little bit and put us in a good position. Poland played well, it's unbelievable that they're 22, 23. Everyone is young on this tour. A lot of teams aren't here and it's still a hard tournament. It's crazy how deep the FIVB World Tour is.”
In a pool-deciding loss to a young, talented team from Brazil, USA’s John Hyden commented after he and Tri Bourne lost to Brazil’s 22-year old budding stars Saymon Barbosa/Gustavo Carvalhaes in three sets. Hyden said, “It's great to be back in the U.S. after being on the road the entire year with the FIVB World Tour. This event is always awesome when we come here for AVP events. The fans here are cool and personable. They come up to us and talk to us and they seem to come every year. Cincinnati is a great place to play. We are halfway through the season and we feel like we've played an entire season. Hopefully we can stay healthy the rest of the season because the big tournaments are coming up, the grand slams, and we need those. It's all about staying healthy and mentally healthy.”
Speaking about the young Brazilians, Hyden said, “A lot of that was of that was our lapse. We were up 6-1 in the second set then we let them climb back in it. They made some good plays but we also gave them a lot of points. They are definitely a good team. The big one (Saymon) is a huge blocker and the little guy (Gustavo), who jumps like 40" and has the quickest arm on tour, is pretty gnarly. I think years to come they're going to be a pretty good team.”
Playing in just their second FIVB World Tour event, Trevor Crabb, 26, and his younger brother Taylor Crabb, surprised three higher seeds in winning their pool with a 3-0 mark.
Trevor related afterwards, “It's great having all these fans here supporting us, all being American fans. It's nice to have them behind our backs and it sure helps when we're playing. It feels really good being 3-0 but it could've gone either way in all of our matches. Two of them went to three. We're happy to have another game tomorrow and some time rest with the bye to the second round. We worked hard for this.”
3-0 POOL WINNERS
In addition to USA’s Gibb/Patterson, Dalhausser/Lucena and Trevor Crabb/Taylor Crabb, also undefeated in winning their respective pools were Mexico’s sixth-seeded Lombardo Ontiveros/Juan Virgen, Canada’s seventh-seeded Josh Binstock/Sam Schachter, Australia’s Isaac Kapa/Christopher McHugh and Brazil’s Carvalhaes/Barbosa.
OTHER POOL WINNER
Winning the final pool on a tiebreaker with a 2-1 record was Germany’s Bennet Poniewaz/Alexander Walkenhorst.
FIVB CINCINNATI OPEN PURSE/POINTS
The gold medal teams at the FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP, will split $11,000 and 500 points, the silver $8,000 and 450 points, the bronze $6,000 400 points and fourth place $4,500 and 450 points.
MORE CINCY INFO
Additional information on the event is available online both at FIVB.org and AVP.com. While general admission to the tournament is free, tickets are available online for the VIP prime seating areas at https://avp.ticketspice.com/cincinnati-ticketing.
ON THE HORIZON
With placement points for the FIVB Olympic Rankings for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games continuing, the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour continues with events over eight straight weeks through the end of May. In all, Brazil is hosting five international events in 2016. In addition to Maceió, Rio, Vitoria and Fortaleza, the Brazil events conclude with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Aug. 6-18).
The FIVB World Tour was in Europe for two events over the last two weeks. Up first was in Russia two weeks followed by last week’s FIVB Antalya Open in Turkey (May 10-15). The tour is visiting the United States for the first time in 2016 this week for the FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP (May 17-21) in Mason, Ohio. Next week, the FIVB World Tour returns to Russia for the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam (May 24-29). After a one week respite, the final Olympic qualifying event on the FIVB World Tour will be the FIVB Hamburg Major Series in Germany (June 7-12).
GROWING HISTORY
The FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP, is the 343rd men’s tournament since the FIVB began play in 1987 and the 304th FIVB women’s tournament since their competition started in 1992.