21/05/2015 19:14
Home heroes suffer setback in qualification tournament as FIVB President visits Jurmala Masters
2015 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Jurmala Masters
Jurmala, Latvia, May 21, 2015. The 2015 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship – Jurmala Masters continued on Thursday with the qualification tournament to determine the teams moving on to the Main Draw which is set to get underway on Friday on Majori beach. Though the weather conditions were a bit difficult especially for the morning session, the players put on a real show as they fought hard to make the next stage of the competition.
FIVB President Dr Ary S. Graça F° (see picture with home hero Aleksandrs Samoilovs) paid visit to the venue of the Jurmala Masters together with the President of the Latvian Volleyball Federation, Mr Atis Sausnitis, and the chairmen of the National Federations of neighbouring Estonia and Lithuania, Hanno Pevkur and Marius Vasiliauskas.
The silver medallists from last year’s Jurmala Satellite, Haralds Regza and Armands Abolins, started their home campaign with a 21-15, 21-13 victory over Denmark’s Lior Koren/Jacob Cordua Stormly. Their countrymen Viktors Korzenevics and Toms Smedins – whose adventure had begun already on Wednesday with the Country Quota matches – did not make it through the first round of qualification as they lost to Jan Dumek and Robert Kufa of the Czech Republic (15-21, 17-21).
The former silver medallists from the CEV U20 European Championships, Regza and Abolins, returned to the court later in the afternoon but they eventually had to accept a 17-21, 21-23 loss to Belgium’s Dries Koekelkoren and Tom Van Walle.
The top-seeded pair of the qualification, Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Piotr Kantor, had a bye in the first round and after that bested Israel’s Alon Sanderovich and Netanel Amiram Ohana by 21-12, 21-8. Turkey’s Hüseyin Hasan Mermer and Selcuk Sekerci upset Norway’s Oivind Hordvik and Morten Kvamsdal (21-18, 21-19) and last year’s bronze medallists from the Jurmala Satellite, Russia’s Yury Bogatov and Maksim Khudyakov, also made the main draw after edging Iaroslav Rudykh and Neilton Moises Santos of Azerbaijan (21-16, 21-14). Austria’s Tobias Winter and Lorenz Petutschnig upset the other Azerbaijani pair in the tournament, Bernardo Wermelinger and Leonid Gritsai (21-14, 21-13) before Jan Dumek and Robert Kufa fought hard to make the Main Draw after beating Norway’s Lars Tveit Retterholt and Bjarte Usken by 22-20, 23-21. Switzerland’s Mats Kovatsch and Jonas Kissling got another ticket to the Main Draw following their 21-19, 21-11 victory over Sweden’s Martin Appelgren and Martin Barrefalk. The last spot was claimed by Czech Premysl Kubala and Jan Hadrava who claimed a very close match with Russia’s Ruslan Bykanov and Sergei Prokopiev (21-18, 17-21, 15-12).
The Main Draw is now set to start on Friday morning at 9 am and entrance to the venue is available for free. The organisers have invited as many people as possible to exploit this opportunity to follow the actions of some of the world’s best Beach Volleyball players.
Starting from the quarterfinals, the matches of the Jurmala Masters will be broadcast across Latvia by TV 6, whilst live streaming will be provided for free by LAOLA1.tv for the global audience. As for the matches of the Latvian teams, starting from pool play on Friday, these will be available on LMT network mobile phones as well as on the Internet at http://straume.lmt.lv, http://delfi.lv and http://sportacentrs.com
Click here for further information or visit the official website http://jurmala.beachvolley.lv
Visit also the official Facebook page and Twitter account of the Jurmala Masters
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