Brazilian Pairs Headline Women’s Moscow Grand Slam Pool Winners
Moscow, Russia, May 28, 2015 - With the completion of women’s pool play in the US$800,000 Moscow Grand Slam, three teams from Brazil are joined by pairs from Australia, China, the Czech Republic, Germany and Spain in winning group titles and netting a “byes” into the second-round of Friday’s elimination bracket.
Fourth-seeded Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas lead the Brazilians into the elimination play as the fourth-seeded pair captured Pool D with a 3-0 match mark to improve their 2015 record on the FIVB World Tour to 10-0. Agatha and Seixas won last week’s Prague Open in the Czech Republic by defeating a team from Canada in the finals.
South American pairs also winning women’s pools were top-seeded Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca (Pool A) and the 14th-seeded Salgado sisters (Carolina and Maria Clara, Pool C), who received a “wild card” for the Moscow Grand Slam. While the Salgados were 3-0 in group play with a forfeit win earlier Thursday from defending Moscow champions April Ross and Kerri Walsh Jennings, Talita and Larissa were 2-1 in in their group.
“Lucky Losers” and 15th-seeded Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude of Germany captured Pool B with three-straight group victories. The Germans were initially ousted from the competition Monday in the country quota playoffs at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Center, but gained entry into Tuesday’s qualifier when a team from Sweden withdrew from the Moscow Grand Slam. Laboureur and Sude, who finished second in the season-opening event last month in China, are now 5-1 this week.
Other pool winners Thursday were sixth-seeded Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova of the Czech Republic (Pool F), ninth-seeded Elsa Baquerizo/Liliana Fernandez of Spain (Pool H), 10th-seeded Fan Wang/Yuan Yue of China (Pool G) and 21st-seeded Louise Bawden/Taliqua Clancy of Australia (Pool E).
The first “big” event on the 2015 FIVB World Tour, the US$800,000 Moscow Grand Slam continues through Sunday when the medal matches for both men and women will be played. The first three rounds of women’s elimination play will be staged Friday with the afternoon quarter-finals highlighting the schedule. The semi-finals will be played Saturday as the Moscow Grand Slam is the fourth stop for women on the 2015 FIVB World Tour calendar.
After this week’s event, the FIVB World Tour’s first “Major Series” stops are set for Croatia (Poreč, June 1-7) and Norway (Stavanger, June 8-14) before international circuit crosses the Atlantic for the final world championship “tune up” in the United States for the St. Petersburg Grand Slam in Florida (June 15-21).