The Hague, Netherlands, March 30, 2015 – With momentum rapidly building towards the most unique, memorable event in the history of the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) the pool assignments for 48 women’s teams were drawn by lots Monday in The Hague for this summer’s 10th FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships which will be held in four cities in the Netherlands.
The drawing for 12 pools of four teams each for the women’s and men’s duos from 40 countries was held at the Mauritshuis Art Museum. It was conducted by representatives from the FIVB and Nevobo (national governing body for volleyball in the Netherlands) in front of sponsors, city officials, members of Beach Team Netherlands, Tournament ambassadors and media personnel.
FORMAT
With a total of 96 teams (48 in each gender), teams will be competing for part of a $1 million purse as the Netherlands hosts an FIVB international event for the sixth consecutive year. Preliminary pool play will be played in all four cities along with the first two round of elimination play for the 32 teams remaining per gender following three rounds of pool play. The semifinals and finals for each gender with be played on the stadium court in The Hague. The event will run from June 26-July 5.
DUTCH DELIGHTS
The top 12 seeded teams were placed in the 12 pools by seed. In accordance with the rules for the host nation, Netherlands’ Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel duo was placed as the top seed for the tournament and will compete in The Hague, playing in Pool A.
The remaining three women’s teams from the Netherlands have been placed one team per the three pools hosted in each of the other three cities.
Other Dutch women’s teams in the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships are Rimke Braakman/Jolien Sinnema (37th-seeded playing in Pool C in Apeldoorn) and Jantine van der Vlist/Sophie van Gestel (41st-seeded playing in Pool B in Amsterdam). The women’s team to play in Rotterdam (Pool L) to be decided in May, will be the winner of the Dutch Premier League who will earn a wild card berth to give the Netherlands four women’s teams in the event.
MORE TOP 12
While the Netherlands has the top-seeded team among the top 12 seeds, Brazil has four teams in the group, Germany has three and with one team each are the China, Czech Republic, Spain and the United States.
Leading the Brazilian teams is the new team of veteran stars Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca, who won gold medals in four of their six events on the FIVB World Tour last year. Second-seeded, they will lead Pool B in Amsterdam.
The three other talented tandems competing for Brazil will be sixth-seeded Agatha Barbara Seixas/Agatha Bednarczuk (Pool F in Apeldoorn), seventh-seeded Maria Antonelli/Juliana Felisberta (Pool G in Amsterdam) and ninth-seeded Fernanda Alves/Taiana Lima (Pool I in The Hague).
For Brazil, Juliana and Larissa won three medals in the FIVB World Championships when they competed together-gold (2011), silver (2009) and bronze (2007). Juliana is now teamed with Antonelli and Larissa and Talita are now teammates. Antonelli and Talita won a bronze playing together in Stavanger and the Juliana/Antonelli duo won the 2015 FIVB World Tour point title and were ranked No. 1 in the world. Seixas won a bronze medal in 2013 teamed with Liliane Maestrini.
Leading USA’s three teams is legendary champion Kerri Walsh Jennings who won three consecutive gold medals in the FIVB World Championships (2003, 2005 and 2007) (and Olympic gold medals in 2004, 2008 and 2012) playing with the now-retired Misty May-Traenor.
Walsh Jennings is seeded third playing now with April Ross. Ross/Walsh Jennings have (Pool C Apeldoorn) won six gold medals in the 13 FIVB World Tour events they have played. Ross won the 2009 FIVB World Championship with Jen Kessy who took time off of the FIVB World Tour in 2013 and 2014 and is seeded 20th in the Netherlands, playing now with Emily Day. Day/Kessy will play in Pool F in Apeldoorn.
Germany has three of the top-12 seeded teams in pool play – fourth-seeded Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler (Pool D in Rotterdam), 10th-seeded Karla Borger/Britta Buthe (Pool J in Amsterdam) and 11th-seeded Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst (Pool K in Apeldoorn).
Other top-seeded teams in the Netherlands will be China’s 12th-seeded Fan Wang/Yuan Yue (Pool L in Rotterdam), Czech Republic’s fifth-seeded Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova (Pool E in Rotterdam) and Spain’s eighth-seeded Elsa Baquerizo/Liliana Fernandez (Pool H in The Hague).
WORLD CHAMP BACK
Playing previously with Xi Zhang, China’s Chen Xue earned one gold medal (2013), one bronze (2011) and one fourth place finish (2007) in the FIVB World Championships. Xue and new teammate Xiny Xia are seeded 25th this year and will be playing in Pool E in Rotterdam..
SCHEDULE
The FIVB will announce the complete Pool Play schedule for matches to be played from June 26 to 30 within the next few weeks. Following three rounds of pool play, the first two rounds of single-elimination play will be held in the four Dutch cities on July 1-2 with the semifinals and medal matches for each gender to be held in The Hague on July 3-5.
HOT TICKETS
With active sales underway for the past few weeks, tickets for the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships The Netherlands 2015 are available for purchase at: netherlands2015.fivb.org/en/tickets.
NO. 10
Prior to this year’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in the Netherlands, previous world championships have been held in the United States (Los Angeles, 1997), France (Marseille,1999), Austria (Klagenfurt, 2001), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, 2003), Germany (Berlin, 2005), Switzerland (Gstaad, 2007), Norway (Stavanger, 2009), Italy (Rome, 2011) and Poland (Stare Jablonki, 2013).
THE HAGUE REVISITED
This will be the sixth FIVB international competition held in the Netherlands with the other five double-gender events all held in The Hague in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014. The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships are held once every two years.
Men’s championship team of the 2014 FIVB the Hague Grand Slam was Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel. Winning last year’s women’s gold medal in The Hague was the new Brazilian duo of Fernanda Alves/Taiana Lima. Both teams are entered in this year’s FIVB World Championships.
2015 FIVB WORLD TOUR
Starting April 21 in China and ending in mid-December, the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar will include five FIVB Grand Slams, the new FIVB Swatch Major Series of three events, six FIVB Opens and a special Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final in the United States. The showcase event will be the $1 million 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in the Netherlands.
2015 FIVB BEACH VOLLEYBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
June 26-July 5, The Netherlands
WOMEN’S POOL ASSIGNMENTS
As of 3.30.15
POOL A in The Hague
Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel, Netherlands
Melissa Humana-Paredes/Taylor Pischke, Canada
Tatyana Mashkova/Irina Tsimbalova, Kazakhstan
Maria A Orellana/Maria J Orellana, Guatemala
POOL B in Amsterdam
Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca, Brazil
Tanja Goricanec/Tanja Huberli, Switzerland
Varapatsorn Radarong/Tanarattha Udomchavee, Thailand
Jantine van der Vlist/Sophie van Gestel, Netherlands
POOL C in Apeldoorn
Kerri Walsh Jennings/April Ross, United States
Heather Bansley/Sarah Pavan, Canada
Mariafe Artacho/Nicole Laird, Australia
Rimke Braakman/Jolien Sinnema, Netherlands
POOL D in Rotterdam
Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler, Germany
Martina Bonnerova/Barbora Hermannova, Czech Republic
Norisbeth Agudo/Olaya Perez, Venezuela
Fabiana Gomez/Maria Nieto, Uruguay
POOL E in Rotterdam
Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova, Czech Republic
Monika Brzostek/Kinga Kolosinska, Poland
Xinyi Xia/Chen Xue, China
Ikram Ettayafi/Mahassine Siad, Morocco
POOL F in Apeldoorn
Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas, Brazil
Emily Day/Jennifer Kessy, United States
Bibiana Candelas/Martha Revuelta, Mexico
Lianma Flores/Leila Martinez, Cuba
POOL G Amsterdam
Maria Antonelli/Juliana Felisberta, Brazil
Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude, Germany
Linline Matauatu/Elwin Miller, Vanuatu
Louiza Bayou/Meriem Boucheta, Algeria
POOL H in The Hague
Elsa Baquerizo/Liliana Fernandez, Spain
Louise Bawden/Taliqua Clancy, Australia
Erika Mongelos/Michelle Valiente, Paraguay
Gabriela Tomasekova/Tina Turnerova, Slovak Republic
POOL I in The Hague
Fernanda Alves/Taiana Lima, Brazil
Nadine Zumehr/Joana Heidrich, Switzerland
Isabelle Forrer/Anouk Verge-Depre, Switzerland
Vatalila Nel/Palesa Sekhonyana, South Africa
Pool J in Amsterdam
Karla Borger/Britta Buthe, Germany
Lauren Fendrick/Brooke Sweat, United States
Anastasia Barsuk/Alexandra Moiseeva, Russia
Priscilla Agera/Isabela Eyetsonetan, Nigeria
POOL K in Apeldoorn
Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst, Germany
Natalia Dubovcova/Dominika Nestarcova, Slovak Republic
Karolina Baran/Jagoda Gruszczynska, Poland
Nathalia Alfaro/Karen Charles, Costa Rica
POOL L in Rotterdam
Fan Wang/Yuan Yue, China
Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth, Italy
Ana Gallay/Georgina Klug, Argentina
WILD CARD, Netherlands