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09/04/2016

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

Lausanne, Switzerland, April 9, 2016 — Following the first of eight straight weeks of events including three in Asia, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) continues the qualifying process for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games through the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour.

The string of eight consecutive events continues in China Monday with the double-gender $150,000 FIVB Xiamen Open. It is the second tournament in the stretch of eight straight events. Next week the FIVB World Tour remains in China for the double-gender $150,000 Fuzhou Open.

Moving to China following last week’s men’s only FIVB Qatar Open in Doha, there are 55 men’s teams from 27 countries and 47 women’s teams from 22 countries in China for the FIVB Xiamen Open. This is the fourth consecutive year that Xiamen has hosted a double-gender FIVB World Tour event

The double-gender $150,000 FIVB Xiamen Open starts Monday and concludes on Sunday. It is the ninth men’s event of the year and sixth women’s event on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour that started with three events at the end of 2015. The FIVB Xiamen Open will be played at Gold Beach, Guanyinshan Siming District, Fujian Province in Xiamen City.

XIAMEN SCHEDULE
The FIVB Xiamen Open is a double-gender event with 32 main draw teams per gender. The format is the same for each gender with the schedule having the men start a day earlier and finish a day before the women. For the men, a qualification tournament on Tuesday will be held to determine the final eight spots in the 32-team main draw for each gender followed by two days of round robin pool play. The top three teams in the eight pools (24 total teams) will advance from pool play to the single-elimination knockout rounds. Pool play will be held on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday will be the final single elimination rounds and the quarterfinals with the semifinals and men’s medal matches on Saturday.

For the women, their qualification tournament will be held on Wednesday, following by pool play on Thursday and Friday, single-elimination rounds through the quarterfinals on Saturday with the women’s semifinals and medal matches on Sunday.

As needed, country quota playoff matches will be played on Monday for men and Tuesday for women to determine the final teams in their respective qualification tournaments on Tuesday and Wednesday.

CHINA’S FIVB HISTORY
China has hosted 53 FIVB World Tour events through 2015, including 22 men’s and 31 women’s tournaments. Host country China has won 19 previous medals on its country’s soil, including two men’s silver medals, six women’s gold medals, seven women’s silver medals, and five women’s bronze medals.

In the 22 FIVB men’s events through 2015, Brazil has the most men’s medals with 25, followed by Germany with nine, the United States with eight, Netherlands with five, Spain and Switzerland three each, China and France with two each and with one each men’s medal in China have been Argentina, Austria, Latvia and Russia.

Through 31 FIVB women’s events in China through 2015, Brazil leads the medals race with 29 total followed by the United States with 23, China with 17, Germany with nine, Australia with four, Netherlands and Switzerland with three each, Austria with two and with one each women’s medals in China are Argentina, Canada, Italy, Norway and Spain.

WELCOME TO XIAMEN CITY
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.

TOP SEEDS
Olympians and Olympic hopefuls abound as many of the world’s best beach volleyball teams are entered in the FIVB Xiamen Open.

The top-seeded preliminary men’s teams for the FIVB Xiamen Open are Canada’s top-seeded Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk, Latvia’s second-seeded Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins, Russia’s third-seeded Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslay Krasilnikov, USA’s fourth-seeded John Hyden/Tri Bourne and Italy’s fifth-seeded Alex Ranghieri/Adrian Carambula.

The second-five preliminary men’s pre-seeds competing in FIVB Xiamen Open are Italy’s sixth-seeded Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo, Spain’s seventh-seeded Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera, Germany’s eighth-seeded Markus Bockermann/Lars Fluggen, Mexico’s ninth-seeded Juan Virgen/Lombardo Ontiveros and Canada’s Josh Binstock/Sam Schachter.

For the FIVB Xiamen Open, the top preliminary pre-seeded women’s teams are USA’s top-seeded April Ross/Kerri Walsh Jennings, Germany’s second-seeded Karla Borger/Britta Buthe, USA’s third-seeded Brooke Sweat/Lauren Fendrick, Italy’s fourth-seeded Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth and Switzerland’s fifth-seeded Isabellle Forrer/Anouk Verge-Depre.

The second-five preliminary pre-seeded women’s team competing in Xiamen are Argentina’s Ana Gallay/Georgina Klug, Switzerland’s seventh-seeded Joana Heidrich/Nadine Zumkehr, USA’s eighth-seeded Emily Day/Jennifer Kessy, Germany’s ninth-seeded Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler and Vanuatu’s 10th-seeded Linline Matauatu/Miller Pata.

FIVB XIAMEN OPEN PURSE/POINTS
The gold medal teams at the FIVB Xiamen Open Slam will split $11,000 and 500 points, the silver $8,000 and 450 points, the bronze $6,000 400 points and fourth place $4,500 and 450 points.

TEAM CHINA
As the host nation for the FIVB Xiamen Open, China has three men’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw for this event and three teams in the qualification tournament. China’s men’s main draw teams are 21st-seeded Cheng Chen/Lizeng Zhang, 22nd-seeded Wuqin Lin/Zequan Lu, and 23rd-seeded Lingfei Dai/Zuhang Chen.

Entered in the men’s qualification tournament from China are Tao Xue/Jinson Wu, Chen Xin Jiang/Cheng An Tao and Xiafeng He/Zhijie Zhou.

As the host nation for the FIVB Xiamen Open, China has three women’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw for this event and three teams in the qualification tournament. China’s women’s main draw teams are 16th-seeded Fan Wang/Yuan Yue, 20th-seeded Chen Xue/Xinyi Xia, and 24th-seeded Chun Xia Chen/Ningya Tang.

Entered in the women’s qualification tournament from China are Xinxin Wang/Jingiing Ding, lingdi Zhu/Jiaxi Wang and Jiali Chen/Jiaomei Li..

ON THE HORIZON
With placement points for the FIVB Olympic Rankings for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games continuing, the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour has resumed with events over eight straight weeks through the end of May. In all, Brazil is hosting five international events in 2016. In addition to Maceió, Rio and Vitoria will be the FIVB Fortaleza Open (April 26-May 1) and the Brazil events conclude with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Aug. 6-18).

The FIVB World Tour has three events in Asia that started with the men’s only FIVB Qatar Open in Doha (April 4-8). The tour now continues with a pair of double gender events in China at the FIVB Xiamen Open (April 12-16) and the FIVB Fuzhou Open (April 19-23) before returning to Brazil for the FIVB Fortaleza Open.

GROWING HISTORY
The FIVB Xiamen Open in China will be the 338th men’s tournament since the FIVB began play in 1987 and the 299th FIVB women’s tournament since their competition started in 1992.

FIVB 2016
Based in Lausanne, Switzerland as the international governing body for the Olympic sports of Beach Volleyball and Volleyball, the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball calendar featured a purse of US$8.8 million with a season that extended from last October to this October, competing at 23 venues in 13 countries. The schedule includes five FIVB Grand Slams, three Swatch FIVB Major Series events, 14 FIVB Opens and the special Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals in the United States. The showcase event will be the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil (Aug. 6-18).

The 2015 portion of the 2016 FIVB World Tour calendar started in October in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and included two more open events prior to the remainder of the schedule resuming at the FIVB Kish Island Open in Iran in February.

ROAD TO RIO
The Olympic qualification process began in 2015 with all FIVB World Tour events (except the Swatch 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 Rio 2016 Olympic Games on Copacabana Beach in Brazil in August. Counting the FIVB Xiamen Open, nine men’s and eight women’s events remain on the Olympic qualifying calendar for the FIVB World Tour.

FIVB WORLD TOUR PURSES
The five FIVB Grand Slam and three Swatch FIVB Major Series competitions in 2016, all double-gender, each have $800,000 in total purses. The total of $500,000 will be the purse for the Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final which will feature the top eight teams in each gender and two wild card teams.

The 14 FIVB Open tournaments on 2016 calendar, 11 double-gender, and three men’s only, have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events and $75,000 for the single-gender competitions.

The gold medal teams in each gender at FIVB Grand Slam and Swatch FIVB Major Series events split $57,000, the silver $43,000, the bronze $32,000 and fourth place $24,000. The gold medal teams in each gender at FIVB Open tournaments each split $11,000, the silver $8,000, the bronze $6,000 and fourth place $4,500.

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 returned as needed in 2015 to determine the final teams for the qualification tournament.

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