Shanghai, China, April 29, 2008 - The second of four-straight SWATCH FIVB World Tour events for women with the Asian confederation of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball begins here Wednesday with qualifying to determine the final eight berths in the "money" rounds of the US$350,000 China Shanghai Jinshan Open.
The 19th Beach Volleyball qualifying event for the Beijing 2008 Olympics Games to be held this August in the Chinese capital, the fifth annual China Shanghai Jinshan Open is the second of three double gender events in the Asian country this season on the international Beach Volleyball calendar. Sanya will host the season-ending SWATCH FIVB World Tour November 10-16 on the island in the southern most region of China.
With four teams already placed in the Main Draw, host China will have two teams in the qualifier at the Jinshan Beach Stadium on Shihua Xincheng Road in the Jinshan District of Shanghai. The tandems of Anna Hu/Yang Li and Zhongji Jiang/Jieqiong Jin will be competing for China on Wednesday in the qualifier.
Headlining the Chinese effort will be the teams of Jie Wang/Jia Tian and Chen Xue/Xi Zhang as both have captured China Shanghai Jinshan Open gold medals. Other Chinese teams are Lu Wang/Man Zuo and Yuan Yue/Wenwen Zhang, who earned a SWATCH FIVB World Tour for the event.
Xue's Jinshan Beach title in 2006 with Zhang made her the youngest player to win a SWATCH gold medal (17 years, 3 months, 10 days) as the pair upset Tian and Wang in the finals. Tian and Wang rebounded last season to capture the China Shanghai Jinshan Open title by defeating Nila Ann Hakedal and Ingrid Torlen of Norway for the gold medal.
Also in the 2008 China Shanghai Jinshan Open field is Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca of Brazil, the three-time SWATCH FIVB World Tour champions. Juliana and Larissa, who did not compete on Jinshan Beach last season, captured the 2005 Shanghai gold medal and placed third in 2006.
The men's qualifier was held Tuesday with teams from Brazil, Cuba, France, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Russia and Venezuela advancing to Wednesday's opening Main Draw rounds in the double-elimination tournament. The men's semi-finals will be Friday followed by the medal matches Saturday. The women's Main Draw starts Thursday with the finals Sunday as the final two teams compete for the $28,000 first-place prize.
The China Shanghai Jinshan Open is the 19th qualifying event for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games as the process started here in May 2007 and concludes July 20 after a 2008 SWATCH FIVB World Tour stop in Marseille, France. With the Beijing field featuring 24 teams per gender with no more than two tandems per country, a pair's best SWATCH eight finishes will be considered when determining the field for the Summer Games in Beijing.
The women are idle the week after Shanghai before playing the next two weeks in Korea (Seoul, May 13-18) and Japan (Osaka, May 20-25) before heading to Barcelona to join the men. |
