Lausanne, Switzerland, June 26, 2014. The men’s 2014 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite Lausanne got underway on Thursday with some country quota clashes and the qualification tournament. After a total of ten matches at Place de la Navigation and Bellerive, eight teams advanced to join another eight, already directly placed, in the main draw.
Austria’s Florian Schnetzer / Michael Murauer and Germany’s Tim Holler / Jonas Schroeder were the two pairs that had to go through two matches each today, winning both of them and making it to the main draw.
In a dramatic country quota battle that lasted almost an hour, Schnetzer / Murauer overpowered compatriots Daniel Hupfer / Julian Hoerl by 3:2 (7-15, 13-15, 15-11, 15-7, 9-7) only to live through another five-set thriller in the only qualification round, emerging victorious by 3:2 (11-15, 15-10, 15-9, 13-15, 7-4) in 51 minutes against Latvia’s Haralds Regza / Abolins Armands.
It was substantially more straightforward for Holler / Schroeder who cruised to the main draw with two consecutive shutouts – 3:0 (15-8, 17-15, 15-13) against fellow Germans Bennet Poniewaz / David Poniewaz and 3:0 (18-16, 15-12, 15-9) against Italy’s Gianluca Casadei / Paolo Ficosecco.
In the longest running qualification tournament game of the day, England’s Jake Sheaf / Chris Gregory achieved a spectacular comback from two sets down to a final 3:2 (12-15, 12-15, 15-10, 15-9, 7-5) knocking out Norway’s Hendrik Nikolai Mol / Lars Fredrik Tvinde after 59 minutes of play. The two English players had left London at 3 o’clock in the morning after being called upon at the last minute and arrived in Lausanne just in time for their game.
The other five duos, which won their sole qualification matches on Thursday to advance to the 16-team main draw, starting on Friday at 11:00 local time, were the top four seeds, Austria's Thomas Kunert / Christoph Dressler, Serbia's Sinisa Antonic / Marko Galesev, Poland's Maciej Kosiak / Maciej Rudol and Ukraine's Iaroslav Gordieiev / Vladyslav Iemelianchyk, as well as Matteo Cecchini / Matteo Martino from Italy.
Main draw action in Lausanne will be streamed live on LAOLA1.tv.
The organizers of the 2014 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite Lausanne celebrated the 25th birthday of the tournament inviting the Swiss Legends to do the show. The evening reunited the mythical Swiss duo Patrick Heuscher / Stefan Kobel, Olympic medalists in 2006 and sent back to the field the legendary Paul Laciga who reigned on European and worldwide beach volleyball for 10 years beside his brother Martin. These wonderful players reminded of the best years of Swiss beach volleyball launching also the new generation with Quentin Metral, 18 years old, teaming up with Paul Laciga. The women also made their great return to Lausanne during this Swiss Legends Night.
Click here for more information on the tournament.