Qualifying matches were completed Wednesday at the FIVB four-star event at the Monta Beach Volley Club in Warsaw, Poland. The tour returns to Warsaw for the first time since the womenâs-only event in 2007.
Americans Casey Patterson and Stafford Slick and Emily Day and Betsi Flint won through and will join Taylor Crabb and Jake Gibb, Sara Hughes and Summer Ross, Nicole Branagh and Kerri Walsh Jennings, and Kelly Claes and Brittany Hochevar in Thursdayâs main-draw pool play.
Patterson and Slick beat two Chinese teams, Likejiang Ha and Jiaxin Wu (17-21, 22-20, 15-7) and Zhuoxin Li and Chaowei Zhou (21-16, 21-16).
Day and Flint defeated Natalia Dubovcova and Andrea Strbova of Slovakia (23-21, 16-21, 15-12) after their first-round win over Latviaâs Alise Lece and Ilze Liepinlauska (21-13, 21-16).
Trevor Crabb and John Mayer, the third-seeded qualifiers, failed to move on after they lost a tight three-set match to Venezuelaâs Tigrito Gomez and Carlos Rangel (16-21, 21-17, 16-14) after defeating Polandâs Jaroslaw Lech and Marcin Ociepski (21-15, 21-18).
Thursdayâs main-draw play begins at 3 a.m. Eastern with modified pool play. Hochevar and Claes kick things off for the USA against Fan Wang and Xinyi Xia of China. Branagh and Walsh Jennings follow against Nina Betschart and Tanya Huberli of Switzerland. Hughes and Ross face Lena Plesiutschnig and Katharina Schutzenhofer of Austria at the same time as Flint and Day will meet Agatha Bednarczuk and Eduarda Lisboa of Brazil.
The American men start at 7:20 a.m. Eastern with Patterson and Slick versus Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst of Austria. Crabb and Gibb follow against Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner of the Czech Republic.
The full FIVB schedule is here and BVBinfo.com has all the results and the pool-play schedule.
