"Predictable” First, Upsetting Men's Second In The Hague

The Main Draw rankings for this week’s US$380,000 SWATCH FIVB World Tour were near-perfect in the first-round of winner’s bracket play here Thursday, but “more surprising” in the next round at The Hague Open Beach Volleyball 2009.

Led by top-seeded Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil of The Netherlands, Friday’s opening matches in the third-round of the winner’s bracket will feature five of the top eight-seeded Beach Volleyball pairs as the SWATCH FIVB World Tour stages its first Dutch event at Hommerson Beachstadion on the most popular beach in The Netherlands.

With 26th-seeded qualifier Gianluca Casadei and Andrea Tomatis of Italy posting the only first-round break-through by defeating seventh-seeded Joao Maciel and Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil 18-21, 21-19 and 22-20 in 70 minutes, the next round featured two upsets. During the women’s opening two rounds Wednesday, seven break-throughs were posted with the third-, fifth- and seventh-seeded pairs were upset.

Nummerdor and Schuil extended their SWATCH FIVB World Tour winning streak to eight-straight victories by defeating pairs from The Netherlands and Portugal to advance to a Friday meeting against ninth-seeded compatriots Emiel Boersma and Joppe Paulides. After defeating a team from Sweden, Boersma and Paulides upset eighth-seeded Jefferson Bellaguarda and Martin Laciga of Switzerland 21-19, 15-21 and 15-11 in 50 minutes.

The first six wins in the Nummerdor/Schuil streak were achieved last week on the Finnish Isle of Aland where the sixth-ranked team on the SWATCH FIVB World Tour captured the gold medal by defeating German world champions Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann in the finals. Paulides is playing in his first event since being sidelined nine weeks ago with a shoulder injury at the world championships in Stavanger, Norway.

With two Dutch teams are on the same side of the bracket with tandems from Austria and Brazil, the lower half of the winner’s competition features pairs from Brazil, Estonia, Georgia and Spain. All eight teams completed play Thursday with two wins each in the next to last SWATCH FIVB World Tour men’s event in 2009.

Other opening winner's bracket matches Friday have 13th-seeded Florian Gosch and Alexander Horst of Austria playing fifth-seeded Benjamin Insfran/Franco Neto of Brazil with third-seeded Adrian Gavira Collado/Pablo Herrera of Spain facing 11th-seeded Renato "Geor" Gomes/Jorge "Gia" Terceiro of Georgia and second-seeded Alison Cerutti/Harley Marques of Brazil being challenged by 10th-seeded Kristjan Kais/Rivo Vesik of Estonia.

Sixteen other teams remain in The Hague Open Beach Volleyball 2009 with one defeat each, including the Brazilian pairs of Maciel/Bruno and fourth-seeded Pedro Salgado/Ricardo Santos. Gosch and Horst upset Salgado and Ricardo 21-19, 17-21 and 16-14 in 63 minutes.

Also advancing with one defeat to Friday’s play are 30th-seeded Nikolay Kolev and Neven Neshev, who are the first Bulgarian men’s team to compete in a SWATCH FIVB World Tour since a 2004 stop in Mallorca. After splitting two matches Thursday with a win over a team from Austria, Kolev and Neshev will play Salgado and Ricardo in their first match Friday.

The Hague Open Beach Volleyball 2009 competition continues through Sunday when the men’s “final four” matches will be played as the winning pair share the $30,000 first-place prize. The women’s semi-finals and medal matches will be Saturday when the men will be competing in the quarter-finals.