Erciyes, Turkey, January 13, 2018. The final in the first men's tournament on the CEV Snow Volleyball European Tour will be a Turkish-Russian match-up. The first semi-final will feature two Russian teams as the second will be an all Turkish matchup between Mert/Sagir and Dundar Y./Ulutas. The home teams performed very well at the courts on Mount Erciyes. The women of Turkey fought hard, resulting in four teams ranked either fifth or seventh and one participating in the semi-finals of Sunday.

After the originally first seeded Polish team of Michal Matyja and Piotr Janiak couldn't make it to Erciyes, the second Polish team of Piotr Groszek/Tomasz Cwiertnia became top seeds. That top position didn't bring them any luck, because after two three-set losses they ranked 13th. Especially the last match gave them some heartache, losing by 13-11 in the final set to Borak Pelenk and Burak Balibey of Turkey.

After Round 3, it became clear that the fight for the top honours at this tournament would be between Russian and Turkish teams. The third seeds Remo Spahr/Raphael Zurgilgen of Switzerland ranked seventh after being ousted by Turkish team Emir Kavuzlu and Volkan Gögtepe in a three-set match. Russians Taras Myskiv and Ruslan Daianov are the highest-seeded team (2) still in contention. They will play their fellow countrymen Valeriy Durnin and Ivan Golovin, who climbed up the ladder in the losers bracket after having lost in the second round to Dundar Yildirim and Emirhan Ulutas of Turkey.

The latter are also in the semis, facing their compatriots Adem Mert and Ali Berke Sagir. The eighth seeds made it to the final four by beating Vsevolod Bobrikov/Vladislav Mikhalev (RUS,13) in a tight three-set match (9-11, 11-9, 12-10).

The women's tournament didn't have that many surprises. All of the four highest seeded teams made it to the semis. Last year's Queens of the Snow Anna Dostalova and Michaela Knoblochova of the Czech Republic were on court for only 21 minutes today. Both their matches ended fairly quickly, beating Acelya Yalcinkaya/Bengisu Kupeli (TUR) 2-0 (11-0, 11-5) in 9 minutes and fourt seeded Slovakians Silvia Poszmikova and Zuzana Snopkova 11-5, 11-7 in 13 minutes.

Second seeds Ekaterina Syrtseva and Ksenia Khakimzanova of Russia had to take the long route after losing to third seeds Bugra Eryildiz/Aleyna Vence (TUR) in Round 3, facing a very young Turkish team in the loser bracket. Belinay Sari and Remziye Basak Uyanik put up a great fight in the first set (12-10). After that, the Russians had the better game plan and secured themselves a spot in Sunday's Final Four (11-5).

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