Statistics, Statistics, Statistics, Part III

Vienna, Austria, August 7, 2017 - With the 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by A1, here’s a look at the top statistical performers in various categories.

• Finland’s Taru Lahti led the tournament in aces per set (1.90) and tied a World Championship record with 10 aces in a single match.  Kazakhstan’s Tatyana Mashkova was not far behind at 1.75 aces per set while Camille Saxton of Canada finished with an average of 1.33.

• USA’s April Ross tallied 24 aces during the tournament, just two behind her all-time mark of 26 in the 2009 tournament.  She also extended her lead in the career totals, with 88 now, and the next closest is Brazil’s Larissa Franca with 63.

• A total of 23 players averaged at least 1 block per set, led by Brazil’s Carolina Salgado at 1.92.  It was a tight race though as Sarah Pavan of Canada finished with 1.89 and Fan Wang of China had 1.85.

• Carolina shares the all-time mark of eight blocks in a match, along with Brazil’s Elize Maia, both of whom accomplished it here in Vienna.  In addition, 16 times a player has gotten seven blocks in a match and seven of those occurred in Vienna.

• Pavan had 34 total blocks in the tournament, the most any player has had in a World Championship, and she is second in career blocks with 64.  Leading that category is USA’s Lauren Fendrick, who has 74.

• Leila Martinez of Cuba led the five women who all averaged at least eight kills per set, as she put away 8.38 per set.  Russian Nadezda Makroguzova (8.22), Switzerland’s Nina Betschart (8.18), Spin’s Amaranta Navarro (8.13) and USA’s Summer Ross (8.07) round out the top five.

• Michala Kvapilova of the Czech Republic tallied 31 kills in a single match, which was the third most ever done in a World Championships.

• Four players have now surpassed 400 career World Championship kills.  USA’s April Ross leads the pack with 498, followed by Brazilians Maria Antonelli (466) and Talita Antunes (452) and her current partner Lauren Fendrick (407).

• Vienna was a goldmine for servers, as aces were plentiful.  Any conversation about aces begins with Brazil’s Evandro.  In Vienna, he averaged 2.21 aces per set, compared to the next highest of 1.44 by Poland’s Bartosz Losiak.  He had 10 aces in one match and eight in another, the first and second (tied) most by any player in a World Championship match.  His total of 42 for the event bettered the previous mark of 30, which he held from the last event in The Hague.  He now owns the career mark with 88 aces in his World Championship appearances.

• Throughout World Championship history, there have been six matches in which a player has tallied seven or more aces in a match, and five of them occurred this year in Vienna.  Evandro had two of them, Losiak two as well, and Argentina’s Julian Azaad added one.

• Likewise, six times in WC history a player has had at least 17 aces in a tournament, and three of those came here in Vienna. 

• Italy’s Alex Ranghieri set the pace in blocks with an average of 3.36 per set in Vienna.  In one match he had 10 blocks, tying for the most ever with a pair of players, both of whom also accomplished it in Austria.  Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Christiaan Varenhorst of The Netherlands both had 10 in a match as well.  Two players had accomplished that prior to this year.

• Varenhorst ended the event with a total of 44 blocks, which was the second highest tournament total in World Championships history.  That mark belongs to Brazil’s Alison Cerutti, who had 49 in Rome. 

• Alison owns the career blocks record by such a large margin that even removing his last two tournament totals would still give him a nine-block lead over the next highest player.  He now has 171 in the five World Championships in which stats were kept.  Next on the list is Brazil’s Pedro Solberg, who has 115.

• The rookie of the tournament, Netherlands’ Maarten van Garderen, led all players with 7.68 kills per set.  Right behind him was gold medalist Andre Loyola of Brazil at 7.63, then Morocco player Mohamed Abicha had 7.50.

• While no player was able to crack the top seven in terms of kills in a single match, three of the top four tournament totals in World Championship history were done this week in Vienna.  Silver medalist Clemens Doppler tied the mark of 154, set by Brazilian Marcio Araujo in 2011.  Van Garderen ended with 146 while Andre Loyola had 145.

• The career mark still belongs to Brazil, as Alison Cerutti has 440 and Bruno Oscar Schmidt has 395.  Austria’s Clemens Doppler now stands at 390.

Click on the STATISTICS tab to see the numbers for the 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by by A1