Baden, Austria, August 19, 2020 - The Baden Open qualification tournament field is set for this week’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event as 16 men’s and 15 women’s pairs will vie here Thursday for the final four places in each gender’s main draw as the Austrian resort south of Vienna hosts an international event for the third consecutive season.
Two Austrian country quota matches were played on Wednesday afternoon with Moritz Kindl and Mathias Seiser defeating compatriots Lorenz Petutschnig and Florian Schnetzer 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) in a 40-minute match to advanced to the men’s qualifier as the third-seeded team.
Petutschnig and Schnetzer had advanced to the country quota finale after posting a 2-0 (21-18, 21-1t) win in 38 minutes earlier Wednesday over Felix Friedl and Maximilian Trummer, who had defeated Kindle and Seiser in three sets nearly three weeks ago at a Slovenian FIVB event in Ljubljana.
“We are delighted at the opportunity to play tomorrow’s qualification,” said the 21-year Kindl after the match. Kindl and Seiser are one of five Austrian men’s duos to capture an FIVB event together after winning their country’s last World Tour title in August 2019 at Vaduz, Liechtenstein.
Other Austrian teams entered in this week’s event with World Tour gold medals to their credit are two-time Baden Open champions Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst along with Christoph Dressler/Alexander Huber (2019 wins in Siem Reap, Cambodia and Qidong, China) and Robin Seidl/Philipp Waller (2018 title in Haiyang, China). The first Austrian men’s FIVB gold medal was claimed in April 2018 in Malaysia by Simon Fruhbauer/Jorg Wutzl.
Austrian Olympians Clemens Doppler (left) and Alexander Horst will be seeking their third-staight Baden Open gold medal
Following Thursday's qualifier, the Baden Open will feature a 16-team main draw playing modified pool play on Friday followed by a 12-team single elimination knockout tournament starting Saturday. The men’s and women’s semifinals and medal matches will be played Sunday.
The 14th event on the 2019-2020 World Tour calendar, the Baden Open marks the 22nd season that Austria has hosted an FIVB event as the European country has staged an international tournament every year since 1997 except for 2013 and 2015 when the nation hosted the European Championships in Klagenfurt.
After the Austrian event this week, three other events are scheduled on the FIVB World Tour starting with next week’s Montpellier Open for men set for August 25-29. Other events on the 2019-2020 calendar are scheduled for Lithuania (Sept. 10-13, Vilnius) for both genders and Cyprus (Sept. 25-27, Larnaka) for women.