09/07/2020 19:00
Beach Volleyball returns in Russia with star-studded field for Moscow national event
News from the National Federations
Moscow, Russia, July 9, 2020. The 2020 edition of the Russian Beach Volleyball Championship started on Thursday at Vodny stadium in Moscow with a series of qualification matches and eight spots in the Main Draw of the competition at stake. The Main Draw featuring 16 men’s and 16 women’s teams will run from Friday to Sunday with six teams taken from the national ranking, two wild-cards and the eight qualifiers from Thursday’s opening day. The event marks the return of competitions run by the Russian Volleyball Federation for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in late March.
In the Main Draw, three teams from each pool make it to the knockout phase, with the pool winners progressing straight to the quarterfinals and the second and third-placed teams resuming their journey from the 8th Finals. TV broadcasting is available for the matches scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
The event features some of the top Russian teams, including EuroBeachVolley 2019 silver medal winners Konstantin Semenov and Ilya Leshukov (pictured above). Reigning world champion Oleg Stoyanovskiy is among the players competing in Moscow as well – along with Aleksandr Kramarenko, who replaces his regular partner Viacheslav Krasilnikov. The men’s competition features the likes of additional up-and-coming players too, who have won a number of medals from age-group championships, such as Alexey Gusev/Pavel Shustrov and Aleksei Arkhipov/Dmitrii Veretiuk.
The 2006 European champion Alexandra Moiseeva is due to compete as well along with Ekaterina Syrtseva, as do 2015 EuroBeachVolley silver medallists Evgenia Ukolova and Ekaterina Birlova. Multiple age-group world and European champions, 2018 Youth Olympic Games gold medallists Mariia Bocharova and Maria Voronina feature in the event as well, even though not as a tandem – Bocharova plays along with Elizaveta Gubina and Voronina with Svetlana Kholomina. Another strong tandem consists of Nadezda Makroguzova and Daria Rudykh.
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