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06/10/2014

FIVB World Tour returns to China for $150,000 FIVB Xiamen Open

Xiamen, China, October 6, 2014 — Back in China for the third time in 2014, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) returns its FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour for the double-gender US$150,000 FIVB Xiamen Open.

Concluding the grand slam portion of its 2014 calendar two weeks ago in Brazil at the FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam, China is hosting its 48th FIVB World Tour event over 17 straight seasons and second consecutive year in Xiamen.

The 2014 FIVB World Tour stop is being held in Xiamen through Sunday in a purpose-built venue at Guanyinshan Gold Beach in the Siming District of the Fujian Province. In addition to hosting 47 previous stops on the FIVB World Tour, China also hosted this year in Nanjing the second Youth Olympic Games. Xiamen is one of eight Chinese cities to host an international FIVB beach volleyball event. Others have been Beijing, Dalian, Fuzhou, Lianyungang, Maoming, Sanya and Shanghai.

The FIVB Xiamen Open begins the final portion of the 2014 FIVB World Tour, as the first of five season-ending FIVB Open events that include four double-gender events and one men-only tournament. The FIVB Xiamen Open is using the FIVB format of a single-day qualification tournament on Tuesday for men and Wednesday for women to determine the final eight spots in each gender’s 32-team main draw tournaments, round-robin pool play with begin on Wednesday for men and Thursday for women. It will conclude with a single-elimination bracket for the final 24 teams. The men’s semifinals and medal matches will be held this Saturday and the women’s semifinals and medal matches on Sunday.

The total entry list for the 2014 FIVB Xiamen Open includes 50 men’s teams from 25 countries and 50 women’s teams from 24 countries selected by their respective national federations.

In addition to the FIVB Xiamen Open, the two other FIVB World Tour stops held in China in 2014 prior to the Xiamen event were the FIVB Fuzhou Open (April 22-27) and the FIVB Shanghai Grand Slam (April 29 to May 4). They were also double-gender events.

Men’s champion duo in Xiamen last year was Brazil’s Alison Cerutti/Vitor Felipe while women’s champion team was USA Olympians Kerri Walsh Jennings/April Ross.

Through the first two of three 2014 events held in the country, China has hosted a total of 47 FIVB World Tour events (19 men, 28 women) over a 17-year period with Brazil leading the medal count in both genders. In the men’s totals, Brazil has 24 medals, followed by Germany and the USA with seven each, Italy with five, Netherlands with four, Switzerland with three, China and Spain with two each and with one men’s medal each in China are Argentina, Austria and Latvia.

After 28 FIVB World Tour women’s events held in China heading into Xiamen, Brazil leads the medal parade with 28 total medals followed by USA with 21, China with 16, Germany with six, Australia with four, Netherlands with three, Austria with two and with one women’s medal in China are Italy, Norway, Spain and Switzerland.

TEAM CHINA
As the host nation, China has three men’s and three women’s teams automatically pre-seeded into the main draw. For the men, the Chinese teams in the main draw are Cheng Chen/Jian Li, Jiaxin Wu/Cong Yang, Lizeng Zhang/Zhuoxin Li. For the women, the pre-seeded main draw teams from China are Fan Wang/Yuan Yue, Yuanyuan Ma/Xinyi Xia and Meimei Lin/Ningya Tang.

Additionally, China has one men’s team and one women’s teams in their respective qualification tournaments. The men’s qualification team from China is Likejiang Ha/Jian Bao. The Chinese women’s qualification team is Xinxin Wang/Yuanyuan.

FIVB WORLD TOUR LEADERS
The top three teams in each gender at FIVB Open events receive 500, 450 and 400 points respectively on the 2014 FIVB World Tour standings.

With a fifth-place finish in São Paulo, Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins moved up to the top of the men’s point leader board with 5,770 points. USA’s Phil Dalhausser/Sean Rosenthal duo, who did not play in São Paulo, is second with 5,440 points in the men’s 2014 FIVB World Tour point standings followed by Brazil’s Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt with 5,330.

In the 2014 FIVB World Tour men’s season earnings, the leading team continues to be USA’s Dalhausser/Rosenthal with $318,000 followed by Brazil’s Alison/Schmidt with $241,000 and Poland’s Fijalek/Prudel third with $240,000.

For the women, Brazil’s Juliana Felisberta/Maria Antonelli pair is still at the top with 6,240 points followed by Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas with 5,660 and USA’s April Ross/Kerri Walsh Jennings with 5,420.

In the 2014 FIVB World Tour women’s season earnings, continuing to lead is USA’s Ross/Walsh Jennings with $282,000 followed by Brazil’s Juliana/Antonelli second with $250,375 and Brazil’s Bednarczuk/Seixas third with $233,000.

J’s BACK
After sitting out last year’s FIVB World Tour, Brazil’s iconic Juliana Felisberta Silva returned to team with the very talented veteran Maria Antonelli. Juliana played domestically in 2013 following the one-year retirement of her legendary teammate Larissa Franca with whom she won an unprecedented seven FIVB World Tour season point championships between 2005 and 2012, the 2011 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships and the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

In addition to leading the women’s 2014 FIVB World Season Rankings as well as the 2014 FIVB World Tour point standings and being second in FIVB World Tour earnings, overall the Juliana/Antonelli duo has a 64-21 record on this year’s FIVB World Tour, with four silver medals (Fuzhou, Puerto Vallarta, Berlin, Klagenfurt) and one bronze (The Hague). Antonelli played last season with Agatha Bednarczuk and finished fifth in the 2013 FIVB World Season Rankings. The new duo’s 64 match wins are the most on the FIVB World Tour this year.

FIVB PURSE, TOURNEY TOTALS
The FIVB Xiamen is the 311th FIVB men’s tournament since its first event in 1987 and the 275th FIVB women’s tournament since FIVB began women’s competitions in 1992. Gold medal winning teams in each gender in Xiamen will split $11,000, silver will receive $8,000, bronze medalists get $6,000 and the fourth place finishers will earn $4,500 of the $150,000 total purse.

THIS IS XIAMEN
Xiamen, also known as Amoy, is a major city on the southeast (Taiwan Strait) coast of the People's Republic of China. It is administered as a sub-provincial city of Fujian province with a population of 3.67 million. Xiamen was a treaty port in the 19th century and one of the four original Special Economic Zones opened to foreign investment and trade when China began economic reforms in the early 1980s. In 2006, Xiamen was ranked as China's second "most suitable city for living", as well as China's "most romantic leisure city" in 2011.

NET POWER TIME
Based in Lausanne, Switzerland as the international governing body for the Olympic sports of Beach Volleyball and Volleyball, the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar features a record purse of US$10.2 million with a season that extends from late April to mid-December competing at 21 venues in 18 countries. This year’s FIVB World Tour includes a record 10 FIVB Grand Slam events, the inaugural Grand Slam Finale and nine FIVB Open Tournaments throughout the world, helping expand the door for development of the sport even further.

The FIVB Grand Slam competitions, all double-gender, have eight with $800,000 in total purses while both The Hague, Netherlands and the Long Beach, Calif., USA event had $1 million each in prize money, the most in FIVB Grand Slam history. The nine FIVB Open tournaments in 2014, seven double-gender, one men only and one women only, have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events, $75,000 for the single-gender.

NEXT GEN
As part of the initiatives of FIVB President Dr. Ary S. Graça F° and his leadership team, the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball international calendar also included a record four age-group FIVB World Championships along with the 2014 Nanjing (China) Youth Olympic Games.

In the inaugural youth Olympics for beach volleyball in August, winning the gold medals were Eduarda Lisboa/Ana Patricia Silva for the women and Russia’s Oleg Stoyanovski/Artem Yarzutkin. The 2014 FIVB age groups world championships got started in Myslowice, Poland with Poland’s Maciej Kosiak/Maciej Rudol winning the men’s gold medal for the home country and Australia’s Mariafe Artacho/Nicole Laird winning the women’s gold medal in the FIVB U23 World Championships. In Acapulco, Mexico, winning the history-making gold medals for the first-time event was Switzerland’s Florian Breer/Yves Haussener for the men and by USA’s Morgan Martin/Kathryn Plummer for the women. In the FIVB U21 world champions in Larnaka, Cyprus, men’s gold went to Poland’s Michael Bryl/Kacper Kujawiak and the women’s gold was won by Canada’s Sophie Bukovec/Tiadora Miric and the gold medal winners at the FIVB U19 World Championships in Porto, Portugal were won by Brazil’s Arthur Mariano/George Wanderley for the men and for the women, Brazil’s Andressa Cavalcanti/Eduarda Lisboa captured the gold medal.

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