Pelhrimov, Czech Republic, January 12, 2018.  With the pool stage of the men’s main draw at the 2018 CEV Beach Volleyball European Masters in Pelhrimov, two Polish teams found their place among the four who earned direct qualification into the quarterfinals, joined by pairs from Belgium and host country Czech Republic.

The home spectators at the Beachwell were pleased to see one of their favourite teams, fourth-seeded Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner fight their way to a couple of victories in Pool D. After 55 minutes of game time, they persevered through the three sets of Friday’s longest running match to claim a come-from-behind 2-1 (17-21, 21-18, 15-10) win against Austria’s Robin Seidl and Christoph Dressler. In the pool final the Czechs managed a 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) victory over Switzerland’s Nico Beeler and Marco Krattiger. Joining the Swiss into the first elimination round on Saturday from this pool will be Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen from the Netherlands, who knocked Seidl and Dressler out of contention after a three-set duel.

“Finally, we did not do anything stupid and we are happy with our performance,” Schweiner commented.

“We won two games - more than we expected,” said Perusic, laughing. “And what's more, we made it to the quarterfinals! We are looking forward to tomorrow and waiting to see which Latvian team we will play against.”

The two Polish teams, top-seeded Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak and 10th-seeded Mariusz Prudel and Jakub Szalankiewicz, did not lose any sets during pool play on Friday. Kantor and Losiak disappointed the home crowd with a 2-0 (21-10, 21-16) win against Czechia’s Marcel Myslivecek and Martin Pihera before shutting out Norway’s Anders Berntsen Mol and Christian Sandlie Sørum in a hard-fought 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) victory. One more duo from Poland, Michal Bryl and Grzegorz Fijalek, survived in the competition by taking the third place in Pool A with a 21-14, 21-12 win against Myslivecek and Pihera.

“It is great to be in the top eight, especially after the FIVB tournament in The Hague, because we have a second tournament in a row,” Bartosz Losiak said. “Our second match was not as perfect as we wanted it to be, but we won and every victory is good. We are enjoying the tournament, the place and the people. I hope we will come back again next year.”

Prudel and Szalankiewicz topped Pool B after a 2-0 (21-15, 21-14) win against Latvia’s Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs, followed by a 2-0 (21-18, 21-16) victory over second-seeded Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst from Austria. In the pool’s losers’ battle, Plavins and Tocs left another Czech pair, Vaclav Bercik and Jan Dumek, out of contention.

Belgium’s Dries Koekelkoren and Tom van Walle did not suffer any set losses in their Pool C campaign either. To start, they claimed a tough 2-0 (25-23, 21-16) win against France’s Youssef Krou and Quincy Aye. Then, they upset third-seeded Latvians Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins with a 2-0 (21-16, 21-19) shutout. This pool’s third available ticket into the next stage went to Austria’s Tobias Winter and Julian Hörl.

Saturday’s action at the Beachwell will continue on two courts, with the first-round matches scheduled for 12:00 and 13:00 local time and the quarterfinals set for 16:00 and 17:00.

All matches on Centre Court will be streamed live on CEV’s YouTube channel and will be available for viewing by the fans in the Czech Republic and all countries where TV rights have not been sold.

To follow the live score of all the games on the event’s webpage, click here.

Engage with the 2018 CEV Beach Volleyball European Masters Pelhrimov on social media by using the competition’s official hashtag #EuroBeachVolley.

Click here for more information on the Pelhrimov Masters.