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01/06/2015

FIVB World Tour debuts Swatch FIVB Major Series in Porec, Croatia

Lausanne, Switzerland, May 31, 2015 — Continuing on the cutting edge of development on the global stage of professional sports, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) travels from Russia to Croatia as the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour debuts the new Swatch FIVB Major Series this week with the US$800,000 Swatch FIVB Porec Major, the first of three double-gender Swatch Majors on this year’s schedule. Visiting Porec for the first time, the FIVB World Tour stop will be held on the purpose-built site on the heart of the colorful Croatian coastal city on the shores of the Adriatic Sea.

This week’s Swatch FIVB Porec Major will start with women’s qualifying on Tuesday followed by women’s pool play Wednesday with tmen’s qualifying on Wednesday followed by the start of pool play on Thursday. Women’s quarterfinals will be held Friday, semifinals and medal matches on Saturday and men’s quarterfinals on Saturday with their semifinals and medal matches on Sunday. The tournament format has a one-day qualification tournament to determine the final eight spots in each gender’s 32-team main draw tournaments followed by round-robin pool play and a single-elimination bracket for the final 24 teams. Country quota playoffs for women, as needed, will be held on Monday and on Tuesday, as needed, for men.

Following Croatia, the two other Swatch FIVB Major Series tournaments will be held next week in Stavanger, Norway and in July 7-12 in Gstaad, Switzerland.

Starting a new sub-series within the FIVB World Tour, a total of 76 men’s teams from 33 countries selected by their national federations and 75 women’s teams from 31 countries selected by their national federations are officially entered in the Olympian-filled field in the inaugural Swatch FIVB Major Series event.

CROATIAN HISTORY
While this will mark the initial visit to Poreč, the FIVB World Tour has stopped in Croatia before, presenting four men’s only events in Zagreb in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. After four men’s events, Brazil and the United States are tied in the medal race with three each and the other six countries that have one men’s podium finish each are China, Estonia, Germany, Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland. Of the 12 podium finishers, Brazil’s legendary Emanuel Rego/Ricardo Santos is the only duo still competing on the FIVB World Tour. Emanuel/Ricardo won the gold medal in Zagreb in 2006 and the bronze medal there in 2005, the first year the tour had a stop in the country.

Croatia has also been the site of two FIVB Age Group World Championships with Umag hosting the U-19 championships in 2011 and the U-21 championships in 2013.

WELCOME TO POREC
Poreč is a town and municipality on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, in Istia County, Croatia. Its major landmark is the 6th century Euphrasian Basilica, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. Poreč is almost 2,000 years old, and is set around a harbor protected from the sea by the small island of Saint Nicholas/San Nicolo. The town's population of approximately 12,000 resides mostly on the outskirts, while the wider Poreč area has a population of approximately 17,000. The municipal area covers 142 square kilometers (55 sq mi), with the 37 kilometers (23 miles) long shoreline stretching from the Mirna River near Novigrad to Funtana and Vrsar in the south. Ever since the 1970s, the coast of Poreč has been the most visited tourist destination in Croatia.

TEAM CROATIA
As the host nation, Croatia has two men’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw and two in the qualification tournament. Croatia’s main draw teams are 23rd-seeded Niksa Dellorco/Ivan Djordjevic and 24th-seeded Filip Silic/Ivan Zeljkovic. Men’s teams in the qualification tournament from Croatia will be Marin Jercic/Kresimir Karaula and Tsimafei Zhukouski/Jegor Zukovskij.

As the host nation, Croatia has two women’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw and two teams in the women’s qualification tournament. Croatia’s main draw teams are 23rd-seeded Maja Rosko/Antea Tadic and 24th-seeded Tea Juric/Dalida Vernier. Women’s teams in the qualification tournament from Croatia will Dina Becic/Martina Matic and Ema Prenc/Valentina Vrbanc.

TOP SEEDS
With significant injuries to both USA Olympic champions Phil Dalhausser and Kerri Walsh Jennings, the seeding for the both the men’s and women’s tournaments have been impacted as both players were forced to withdraw from the tournament following competition injuries last week in Moscow.

For the Swatch FIVB Porec Major, preliminary revised top men’s seeds are Brazil’s top-seeded Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Poland’s No. 2 Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, Latvia’s No. 3 Aleksanders Samoilovs/Janis Smedins, Brazil’s No. 4 Emanuel Rego/Ricardo Santos, USA’s No. 5 Tri Bourne/John Hyden, Italy’s No. 6 Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai, Netherlands’ No. 7 Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst, USA’s No. 8 Sean Rosenthal/Stafford Slick and Germany’s No. 9 Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik.

For the Swatch FIVB Porec Major, preliminary revised top women’s seeds are Brazil’s top-seeded Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca, Germany’s No. 2 Katrin Holtick/Ilka Semmler, Czech Republic’s No. 3 Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova, Brazil’s No. 4 Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas, Brazil’s No. 5 Maria Antonelli/Juliana Felisberta, Spain’s No. 6 Elsa Baquerizo/Liliana Fernandez, Germany’s No. 7 Karla Borger/Brita Buthe, Netherlands’ No. 8 Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel, Germany’s No. 9 Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst and China’s no. 10 Fan Wang/Yuan Yue.

SWATCH FIVB POREC MAJOR PURSE
The gold medal team in the Swatch FIVB Porec Major will split $57,000, the silver $43,000, the bronze $32,000 and fourth place $24,000. The men’s quarterfinals and the women’s semifinals and medial matches will all be played on Saturday with the men’s semifinals and medal matches on Sunday.

FIVB WORLD TOUR BREAKDOWN
The 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour schedule will include five FIVB Grand Slams, the new Swatch FIVB Major Series of three events, six FIVB Opens and a special Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final in the United States. The showcase event will be the $1 million 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in the Netherlands (June 26-July 5).

A total of 15 countries will host events this year as the 2015 FIVB World Tour also begins the Olympic qualification process with all FIVB World Tour events (except the FIVB World Tour Finals) in 2015 up until June 13, 2016 counting towards the Olympic Ranking in order to determine 15 spots for each gender that will take part in each 24-team field in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

FIVB WORLD TOUR PURSES
The FIVB Grand Slam and Swatch FIVB Major Series competitions, all double-gender each have $800,000 in total purses. The total purse FIVB World Championships the Netherlands 2015 will be $1,000,000 and $500,000 total for the Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final which will feature the top eight teams in each gender.
The nine FIVB Open tournaments in 2015, seven double-gender, one men only and one women only, will have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events and $75,000 for the single-gender competitions.

FIVB EVENT FORMAT
Implemented in 2013, the format of all the FIVB Beach Volleyball international tournaments – whether FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam or FIVB Beach Volleyball Open – are the same, featuring pool play followed by single elimination knockout rounds. Country Quota playoffs will return as needed in 2015 to determine the final teams for the qualification tournament.

ON THE HORIZON
Following this week’s first of three Swatch FIVB Major Series events on the 2015 calendar with the $800,000 Swatch FIVB Porec Major in Croatia, June’s spectacular schedule continues with the $800,000 Swatch FIVB Stavanger Major in Norway-June 8-14 followed by a trip to Florida in the United States for the $800,000 FIVB St. Petersburg Grand Slam (June 15-21).

The dynamic month of beach volleyball will conclude with the $1,000,000 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships The Netherlands (June 26-July 5) being anchored in The Hague with pool play and the first two rounds of single-elimination also being played in Amsterdam, Apeldoorn and Rotterdam.

GROWING HISTORY
The Swatch FIVB Porec Major will be the 318th men’s event since the FIVB began men’s competition in 1987 and the 282nd FIVB women’s tournament since they started in 1992.

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