27/08/2014 11:12
Reigning European champions sign up for inaugural Baku Masters
2014 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Baku Masters
Baku, Azerbaijan, August 27, 2014. The Baku Masters scheduled for September 10-14 will complete the programme of this year’s CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship that previously stopped in Baden, Cagliari, Novi Sad, and Biel/Bienne. The tournament will be taking place at the Heyat Rest Area, the same venue that last June played host to a first-round tournament on schedule for the 2014-2016 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup. After this premiere, the profile of Beach Volleyball in Azerbaijan will now move to the next level with the Baku Masters, which is also a perfect rehearsal for the Beach Volleyball tournament of the inaugural European Games taking place in June 2015 in Baku.
Some of Europe’s top teams have expressed their intention to travel to Azerbaijan where FIVB/CEV ranking points and 25,000 € per gender will be at stake. Italy’s Paolo Nicolai (pictured) and Daniele Lupo, the reigning European champions, top the entry lists together with Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek and Mariusz Prudel, bronze medallists from last year’s CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship in Klagenfurt. Nicolai/Lupo have had an excellent season also on the FIVB World Tour winning the first two stops in Fuzhou and Shanghai before claiming silver at the Klagenfurt Grand Slam earlier this month. Fijalek/Prudel also can look back at an already terrific season which got started with a gold medal from the Baden Masters and continued with Poland’s first historic Grand Slam title at the World Tour stop in The Hague. Fijalek/Prudel also won silver at the Moscow and Long Beach Grand Slams for what has been – by far – their most successful campaign on the World Tour.
The entry lists also include Russia’s Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslav Krasilnikov, winners of this year’s Moscow Grand Slam, Poland’s Michal Kadziola/Jakub Szalankiewicz as well as triple European champion Reinder Nummerdor of the Netherlands who has been playing with Christiaan Varenhorst lately. Nummerdor knows Baku pretty well for he spent some time in Azerbaijan’s capital city by the time his girlfriend, now wife Manon Flier, played there for the teams of Azerrail and Igtisadchi.
The entry list for the women’s competition is topped by Marketa Slukova and Kristyna Kolocova of the Czech Republic who have had a sensational season on the World Tour with gold medals from the Prague Open and Berlin Grand Slam on their resume. Germany’s multiple European medallist Laura Ludwig follows next together with Anni Schumacher, and the top three seeds are completed by Slovakia’s sensation Natalia Dubovcova and Dominika Nestarcova, who this year have written history for their home country by claiming bronze at the Stavanger and Long Beach Grand Slams. Two former European champions, Italy’s Marta Menegatti and Russia’s Alexandra Moiseeva, are also set to compete in Baku alongside Viktoria Orsi Toth and Evgenia Ukolova, respectively.
The Baku Masters will get underway on September 10 with the country quota matches and then continue all the way through to the finals scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, September 13 and 14, for women and men respectively.
Click here for more info including detailed entry lists
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