Ios, Greece, June 15, 2019. Top seeds Dimitra Manavi and Konstantina Tsopoulou and Stylianos Tzioumakas/Iason Kanellos of Greece keep the home flag flying at the 2019 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 1-Star stop on the Cycladic island of Ios after scoring two wins Saturday - the opening day of Main Draw - to advance to Sunday's quarterfinals.

The Greek pair beat Norway's Sunniva Helland-Hansen/Hanne Haugen Zylstra 2-1 (21-11, 13-21, 15-8) and the Austrian Klinger sisters, Dorina and Ronja 2-0 (22-20, 21-18) in pool play.

Also directly through to the top eight with two wins each in pool play were two teams that had entered the Main Draw through Friday's qualifiers, Anaya Evans/Ellie Austin of England and Beata Vaida/Ioana-Alexandra Ordean of Romania.
Cyprus' Mariota Angelopoulou/Zoi Konstantopoulou made up the undefeated teams with direct access to the quarterfinals.

But second-seeded Tereza Kotlasova/Daniela Resova of the Czech Republic, after suffering a defeat in morning pool play, had to go through the knockout stage of the Round of 12 where they edged Denmark's Maria Elisabeth Tyndeskov/Line Trans Hansen 2-1 (21-18, 17-21, 15-12) to make it through.

This sets up a quarterfinal clash between the top two seeds of the tournament, Sunday morning.

Claudia Scampoli/Dalila Varrassi who originally entered the Ios event as No. 8 of the Qualification Tournament and continued as No. 11 in the Main Draw, upset the Klinger sisters in the Round of 12.


The iconic venue hosting the 1-Star event on Ios Island.

In the men's tournament, top seeds Maxim Sivolap and Artem Yarzutkin of Russia had to play an extra round Saturday and play a tie-break in the knockout round to make the quarterfinals.

After finishing pool play on a 1-1 record, the Russian pair edged sixth-seeded Latvia's Kristaps Smits/Aleksandrs Solovejs 2-1 (21-10, 18-21, 15-13) in the Round of 12 to stay alive in the tournament.

Second-seeded Toms Smedins/Haralds Regza shut out Marcel Myslivecek/Martin Pihera 2-0 (21-16, 24-22) of the Czech Republic in the Round of 12 to go through.

The two Czech pairs of Filip Habr/David Lenc and Jindrich Weiss/Donovan Dzavoronok, France's Florian Gosselin/Jérémy Silvestre and Austria's Felix Friedl/Maximilian Trummer had all advanced earlier with back-to-back wins in pool play.

Of those, Weiss/Dzavoronok and Gosselin/Silvestre had come through Friday's Qualification Tournament.

The only pair to represent the hosts in the men's competition are Wild Cards Stylianos Tzioumakas/Iason Kanellos, who beat Dimitrios Niopas/Thodoris Papadimitriou 2-1 (16-21, 21-13, 15-11) in the Round of 12 all-Greek clash.

Action on Mylopotas Beach on Ios Island continues Sunday morning with the quarterfinals and semifinals and wraps up in the afternoon with the medal matches.

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