Knokke-Heist, Belgium, August 15, 2019 – Jess Grimson and Victoria Palmer made it through qualifying for the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Knokke-Heist 1-Star on Thursday, one of four teams per gender to reach pool play that begins on Friday.
The English pair defeated Portugal’s Vanessa Paqueta and Beatriz Pinhiero 2-1 (16-21, 21-18, 15-10) to reach a World Tour main draw for the fifth time in 2019.
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Israel's Sofia Starikov and Anita Dave, Arianna Barboni and Chiara They of Italy and Danish duo Cecilie Køllner Olsen and Sofia Nørager Bisgaard were the other three teams to qualify for women’s pool play.
The seaside resort close to the Dutch border is hosting a World Tour tournament for the first time and it is taking place at the Evenementenstrand event beach from August 15-18. The winning teams in Knokke-Heist will collect the €1,000 first-place prizes and claim 200 Tokyo 2020 Olympic points.
In the men’s competition Kensuke Shoji and Masato Kurasaka defeated the Netherlands’ Sven Vismans and Tom van Steenis 2-1 (19-21, 21-15, 16-14). It means that the Japanese duo have the chance of winning their first World Tour medal of 2019.
Shoji and Kurasaka will be joined in the men’s main draw by Russia's Pavel Shustrov and Alexey Gusev, Maximilian Trummer and Mathias Seiser of Austria, and Sweden's Peter Lundgren and akob Wijk Tegenrot.