Lausanne, Switzerland, June 27, 2014.  The second day of the men’s 2014 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite Lausanne confirmed the leading status of the Swiss duo Sebastian Chevallier / Alexei Strasser and the German pair Sebastian Fuchs / Thomas Kaczmarek, seeded #1 and #2, respectively, in the main draw.  These two teams, along with fifth-seeded Selcuk Sekerci / Murat Giginoglu from Turkey and eleventh-seeded Tim Holler / Jonas Schroeder from Germany, made it successfully through the first two rounds and are now one step away from the semifinals.

Very tight games were played on the first day of the main draw of the tournament in Lausanne.  The first game of the day starred the favorites of the competition, the local hero Sebastien Chevallier and his teammate Alexei Strasser, versus their friends and fellow countrymen Nico Beeler / Marco Krattiger.  The brand new beach volleyball players (at the beginning of the year, Beeler and Krattiger were playing indoor volleyball) started their encounter very well with precise receptions and passes and won the first set before losing by 1:3 (15-12, 12-15, 8-15, 11-15).  Chevallier / Strasser followed up with a 3:1 (15-12, 15-13, 17-19, 20-18) victory over Poland's Maciej Kosiak / Maciej Rudol, the reigning U23 world champions.

The next game on the center court was also a clash between fellow countrymen, this time from Austria.  Fourth-seeded Peter Eglseer / Felix Koraimann survived an epic five-set battle with Florian Schnetzer / Michael Murauer to win by 3:2 (15-11, 8-15, 13-15, 15-11, 9-7) after more than an hour’s play, before losing to fifth-seeded Sekerci / Giginoglu by 0:3 (11-15, 13-15, 12-15) in the second round.

Chevallier / Strasser will face Sekerci / Giginoglu in one of the third round matches on Saturday in an attempt to qualify for the semis.

Sebastien Chevallier:  “We are very happy to have won this very tight game against the U23 world champions from Poland.  Today was a very good day for us with the two victories, even if it was not easy to win against my flatmate Marco Krattiger this morning!”

The other Round 3 match on Saturday afternoon will be an all-German clash between Fuchs / Kaczmarek and Holler / Schroeder, both of which showed a very impressive performance during all their encounters.

Another four teams will survive in the losers’ bracket by the end of competition on Friday night and will each be two victories away from the remaining two semifinal spots.

Main draw action in Lausanne is streamed live on LAOLA1.tv.