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25/02/2016

Host country nets four men's Maceió Open pool titles

Maceió, Brazil, February 25, 2016 - Led by top-seeded Evandro Goncalves and Pedro Solberg, four of the seven Brazilian men’s teams in this week’s Main Draw at the FIVB World Tour event captured pools here Thursday afternoon to net first-round byes when elimination play starts Friday in the $150,000 Maceió Open.

Evandro and Pedro posted Pool A wins over teams from Latvia, the United States and Venezuela to advance to the Friday’s second-round of elimination as the second- and third-place finishers in each group will play an opening elimination match earlier in the day on the Pajuçara courts in front of the Hotel Enseada.

Quick links
•    Maceio Open website
•    Qualification results - Men
•    Qualification results - Women
•    Main draw results - Men
•    Main draw results - Women

“So far, so good,” said the 29-year Pedro, who is starting his 11th-season on the FIVB World Tour. “We are pleased with our play as this is our first international event since playing last October in the SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals in the United States. We played very well against a good American team today, so we are happy.”

Pedro Solberg

After defeating Martins Plavins/Haralds Regza of Latvia in three-sets in the next-to-last match Wednesday evening, Evandro and Pedro controlled the action in posting a 2-0 (21-13, 21-12) win over 16th-seeded Theo Brunner and Sean Rosenthal of the United States in 31 minutes Thursday afternoon.

Top seeds
For the elimination round, Evandro and Pedro will occupy a spot in the bottom half of the bracket while second-seeded Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena of the United States will be the No. 1-seeded team in the elimination round after winning Pool B with wins over teams from Brazil, Poland and Venezuela.

The seeding for the elimination rounds is based on wins and point ratio. Since both pairs were 3-0 in their group, Dalhausser and Lucena had a 1.352 point ratio while Evandro and Pedro posted a 1.216. Both teams will be looking for another gold medal on the FIVB World Tour as Evandro and Pedro topped the podium last June at the Stavanger Major in Norway. The Americans netted “open” gold medals last September (Xiamen, China) and October (Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.).

Other Brazilian pool winners were 11th-seeded Vitor Felipe/Alvaro Filho (Pool F), 28th-seeded qualifiers Saymon Barbosa/Gustavo Carvalhaes (Pool E) and 30th-seeded “wild card” entry Oscar Brandao/Andre Loyola. Both the teams of Felipe/Alvaro and Saymon/Guto posted 3-0 group records. Oscar/Andre finished with a 2-1 match mark to tie third-seeded Canadians Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk, but the Brazilians had the better point ratio (1.050 to 1.024).

Joining Dalhausser and Lucena as foreign group winners seventh-seeded Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri of Italy (Pool G), ninth-seeded Lombardo Ontiveros/Juan Virgen of Mexico and the 13th-seeded Grimalt cousins of Chile (Esteban and Marco). Like the Americans, all three teams posted 3-0 match marks in pool play.

Dalhausser and Lucena

Diving for the Mikasa USA's Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena

Competing with Dalhausser and Lucena in the top-half of the 16-team elimination bracket are Carambula/Ranghieri, Vitor/Alvaro and Oscar/Andre. The Grimalts, Saymon/Guto and Ontiveros/Virgen will compete against Evandro and Pedro in the bottom-half of the elimination bracket.

Friday pairings
With the fourth-place finishers in each pool eliminated Thursday and placing 25th, here’s the pairings for Friday’s opening men’s elimination rounds.

• Murat Giginoglu/Volkan Gogtepe, Turkey (No. 20 Main Draw seed) v Sebastian Fuchs/Stefan Windscheif, Germany (21)
• Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk, Canada (3) v Christoph Dressler/Thomas Kunert, Austria (24, No. 1 qualifying seed)
• Josh Binstock/Sam Schachter, Canada (10) v Bruno de Paula/Hevaldo Moreira, Brazil (29, Q19)
• Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz, Prudel Poland (8) v Martins Plavins/Haralds Regza, Latvia (17)
• Theo Brunner/Sean Rosenthal, United States (16) v Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak, Poland (15)
• Marco Caminati/Enrico Rossi, Italy (22) v Dmitri Barsouk/Nikita Liamin, Russia (26, Q8)
• Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Konstantin Semenov, Russia (5) v Tri Bourne/John Hyden, United States (6)
• Thiago Santos Barbosa/George Wanderley, Brazil (31, Q21) v Youssef Krou/Edouard Rowlandson, France (14)

The Maceió Open concludes with the quarter- and semifinal matches for both men and women on Saturday followed by the medal matches Sunday where the gold medal teams will share the $11,000 first-place prize. Following the Maceió Open, the FIVB World Tour will take a week off before resuming competition March 8-13 on the famed Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, the first grand slam event on the 2015-2016 international Beach Volleyball calendar with an $800,000 purse.

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