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Top seeds fall at FIVB Beach Volleyball Xiamen Open

Xinhua, April 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

Top three seeded tandems, including 2015 Xiamen Open bronze medalists Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins from Latvia, all crashed out of the 150,000-US-dollar FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Xiamen Open quarterfinals here on Friday.

Top seeds Chaim Schalk and Ben Saxton of Canada had their four-game winning streak snapped as they lost to Spain's seventh seeds Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira in a full set thriller 2-1 (21-17, 19-21, 15-8) in the last quarterfinal match Friday afternoon. After splitting the first two sets with Schalk/Saxton, Herrera/Gavira jumped to a 9-5 lead in the tiebreaker and Herrera wrapped up the battle in 47 minutes with a pair of aces.

"Wow, I was lucky. I pushed for that, but it was lucky," said Herrera. "It's a great match. They played very well. But we have very good side-out, very good blocking and service; I think that's the key to our victory."

The Spaniards took a few minutes sitting next to the court to relax a little bit after securing their first top four finish of the season in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour.

"It's important for us to win a medal here for the confidence, for the Olympic ranking and entry points," said Gavira. "We have to enjoy the semifinal, our first semifinal of the year, and we have to enjoy the match. No matter what comes out, we'll be happy."

Earlier on Friday, Mexico's ninth seeds Lombardo Ontiveros/Juan Virgen surprisingly swept Samoilovs/Smedins 2-0 (21-14, 21-19) to reach the medal round.

"It was a tough game. They are a very good team, I don't need to say that, but we did better, the game was for us," said Ontiveros. "The win is a big matter for us, because we made points for Olympic ranking. We'll try to keep pushing more in this tournament and we want to see what will happen. Tomorrow it will be a pretty tough day. Anything can happen and I hope the things go for us."

Italy's third seeds Alex Ranghieri/Ignacio Carambula also failed to make the top four after surrendering to fifth seeds John Hyden/Tri Bourne of the United States while their compatriots and sixth seeds Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo fell to Poland's Maciej Rudol/Maciej Kosiak 2-0 (21-16, 21-18) in the first round of the knock-out stage Friday morning.

Fourth seeds Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslav Krasilnikov of Russia will be the highest ranked team in the semifinals after whitewashing Polish qualifiers Michal Bryl/Kacper Kujawiak 2-0 (21-12, 21-16).

"I want to play in the final," Semenov declared.

The men's semifinals and finals will be held on Saturday with the gold medal team at the FIVB Xiamen Open to split 11,000 dollars and 500 points. Endit