Jana Kohler (right) hits at the SWATCH net during the German Country Quota playoff match Monday against compatriot Angelina Grun (left) as partner Julia Sude follows the action. |
Klagenfurt, Austria, July 26, 2010 - The 14th annual Beach Volleyball festival in this European country started here Monday afternoon in the capital of Carinthia as pairs from Brazil and Germany played women’s Country Quota playoff matches to help set the field for this week’s SWATCH FIVB World Tour stop. A
dvancing from the women’s Country Quota playoffs Monday were Vivian Cunha/Taiana Lima of Brazil, and Jana Kohler/Julia Sude and Chantal Laboureur/Claudia Lehmann of Germany. Vivian and Lima have now advance from three CQs in four attempts this season after failing in their previous two attempts in Norway and Switzerland.
Kohler and Sude extended their Country Quota success string to four-straight with six advancements in eight attempts this season. Laboureur, a 2008 FIVB youth world champion for players under the age of 19, and Lehmann snapped a four-event CQ losing streak to improve their success mark in the preliminary rounds to 2-5.
Klagenfurt now joins Rio de Janeiro and the Japanese city of Osaka in hosting the second most SWATCH FIVB World Tour events since the start of the circuit in 1987. The Austrian event started in 1997 as a men’s-only stop with the women joining the competition format in 2001 with Klagenfurt hosted the FIVB world championships.
The US$600,000 A1 Beach Volleyball Grand Slam presented by Volksbank is the ninth women’s event on the 15-stop SWATCH FIVB World Tour calendar in 2010 as Tuesday’s Qualification Tournament will determine the last eight spots for Wednesday’s opening rounds of pool play. The women’s “final four” matches will be played Saturday followed by the men’s medal rounds Sunday as the winning teams in each gender will share the $43,500 first-place prizes.
Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca, the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour point’s leaders from Brazil are the defending A1 Beach Volleyball Grand Slam champions after defeating Americans Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs in the 2009 gold medal match on the Metnitzstrand at Lake Wörthersee.
It was Juliana and Larissa’s first Klagenfurt title in six Austrian starts after placing second in 2006 and 2007 with fifths in 2004, 2005 and 2008. Branagh returns to the A1 Beach Volleyball Grand Slam field this year with Misty May-Treanor, a four-time Klagenfurt champion in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007 with former partner Kerri Walsh.
With Juliana and Larissa seeking their fifth SWATCH tour championship in six years, the Brazilians chief rivals since the start of the 2010 season have been compatriots Maria Antonelli and Talita Antunes and American FIVB world champions Jen Kessy and April Ross. Antonelli and Talita enter Klagenfurt as the second-ranked team on the international tour after winning last week’s SWATCH stop in Marseille, France.
In Marseille, Antonelli and Talita posted a 21-17 and 21-12 win in 37 minutes over the Schwaiger sisters (Doris and Stefanie) of Austria to capture their first SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal in 2010. The Brazilians claimed four international Beach Volleyball titles in 2009 when Antonelli and Talita finished second in the FIVB points standings behind Juliana and Larissa.
With six-straight wins in Marseille, Antonelli and Talita moved into second-place on the points standings for the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour with 4,100 points to rank behind Juliana and Larissa (4,460 points). Kessy and Ross, the earlier season leader, are currently third with 4,020 points after placing ninth, ninth and fifth in the last three SWATCH events in Norway, Switzerland and France, respectively.
For the first-time in Marseille, two Austrian teams earned podium placements at the same event on the SWATCH FIVB World Tour as Barbara Hansel and Sara Montagnolli scored a 21-18, 19-21 and 16-14 bronze medal win in 68 minutes over sixth-seeded Sanne Keizer and Marleen Van Iersel of The Netherlands.
After the Austrian stop, the season’s final SWATCH FIVB World Tour Grand Slam event will be in Poland (Stare Jablonki, August 2-8). Open events will conclude the European portion of the international season with stops in Norway (Kristiansand, August 9-15), Finland (Aland, August 16-22) and The Netherlands (The Hague, August 23-29).
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