Great Britain's Elizabeth Smith goes up to block Netherland's Madelein Meppelink's kill as her Dutch teammate Sophie van Gestel waits her next move during the Netherlands' win Thursday at the SWATCH FIVB Junior World Championships in Blackpool, England. | Blackpool, England, Sept. 17, 2009 –Playing their first of three main draw pool play matches on Thursday, the world’s best young adult women’s beach volleyball teams continue to light up the sand with their ‘electric’ play at the 2009 SWATCH FIVB Junior World Championships, for players under 21 years old. The ninth edition of this world championship event is being held in England for the second straight year and the first in Blackpool.
Pool Play will finish on Friday when the 24 women’s main draw teams play their final two pool play matches after which the field will be reduced to 16 to begin the single elimination final phase of the event on Saturday.
With the 24 teams divided into six pools, joining Germany and the Netherlands, who each had two teams win matches Thursday, the other eight countries who opened the Main Draw with victories were Russia, Italy, Czech Republic, Canada, Poland, Mexico, the United States and Brazil.
The event, which is free to the public, continues through Sunday at St. Chads Headland on the South Promenade in Blackpool. In Great Britain for this week’s world championship event for both men and women are a total of 69 two-person beach teams (36 men, 33 women) representing 29 nations. The gold medal and bronze medal matches for both genders will be played on Sunday.
Germany’s Katharina Culav/Chantal Laboureur, the 21st-seeded team who advanced out of Wednesday’s qualification tournament as the second-seeded qualifying team, won in two sets over a team from Switzerland to open pool play. The other German women’s team, third-seeded Victoria Bieneck and Marika Steinhauff came from behind in three sets to defeat Brazil’s Marcella Colnago/Fabi Boogaerdt (third-seeded qualifying team, 22nd main draw seed), 11-21, 23-21 and 15-12 in 53 minutes, the longest women’s match of the day.
The two German teams each have one player from the last two years gold medal team from the SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships for players under 19 years of age. Laboureur won in 2008 in The Hague, Netherlands while Bieneck won her gold medal last month in Alanya, Turkey.
The two main draw teams from the Netherlands both won their opening matches in straight sets as second-seeded Danielle Remmers/Michelle Stiekema defeated a team from the Slovak Republic and Sophie van Gestel/Madelein Meppelink opened the day’s play for women on the Pleasure Beach Centre Court with a win over a team from Great Britain.
The Dutch players have great resumes as well as Remmers/Stiekema won the 2007 youth world championships and Remmers won last year’s junior world championships with Marleen Van Irsel in Brighton, England and Stiekema won the silver medal in Brighton playing with van Gestel. Van Gestel also was half of the team that won last year’s silver medal at the youth world championships in The Hague.
Russia’s 19th-seeded Irina Chaika/Anna Vozakova opened with a win over a team from Great Britain while Italy’s 11th-seeded Marta Menegatti/Debora Alegretti, who won the gold medal at this summer’s European U-20 championships, defeated a team from Norway in two sets. Chaiki was half of the 2008 bronze medal and 2009 silver medal teams at the youth world championships.
Also opening women’s play with victories Thursday were fifth-seeded Martina Bonnerova/Barbora Hermannova, of the Czech Republic, who won over a team from Finland in three sets, Canada’s 13th-seeded Kaitlyn Krizmanich/Caleigh Whitaker with a win over a team from Austria, Poland’s 10th-seeded Monika Brzostek/Kinga Kolosinska over a tandem from Norway, Mexico’s 16th-seeded Karla Martinez/Ana Ramirez won over a team from Australia, USA’s eighth-seeded Jazmin Machado/Summer Ross beat a team from Estonia in three sets and Brazil’s Amanda Maltez/Julia Schmidt, seeded seventh, defeated a team from Spain.
With 20 teams pre-seeded into the main draw and the top qualifiers earning the final four slots, Great Britain has two teams in the women’s main draw. The UK teams of Jessica Grimson/Elizabeth Smith and Paige Nelmes/Annie Tinker both lost their opening matches on Thursday to teams from Netherlands and Russia respectively. In all, there are 20 countries represented in the men’s main draw.
The 2009 SWATCH FIVB Junior World Championships are being produced by Beach Volleyball UK Ltd. of Dorset in association with Britain’s Northwest Regional Development Agency and Volleyball England.
Lying along the coast of the Irish Sea, Blackpool, England’s major seaside resort, is 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Manchester and less than 30 miles north of Liverpool City centre.
Additional event information is available at www.beach-volleyball.co.uk, www.fivb.org and www.volleyballengland.org. | 
