Russian Beach Volleyball Championship gaining momentum 03.07.2010

Men’s and women’s pool plays started on Friday. Each team had two matches. But the tournament was preceded by an official opening ceremony on the central court that was attended by all the athletes, referees, court staff and also special guests from the Ministry of Sports of the Republic of Tatarstan.

We remind that according to the new formula for the Russian competition, 16 teams of the men’s and women’s main draw were divided into four pools of four teams. The best duos from each pool advance to the playoffs.

In the women’s events, after two rounds of play, the situation was not still clear enough. Only one of four women’s pools decided the teams qualifying for the next round. The Ryabova/Chayka tandem and wild-card holders Biryukova/Petrova from Kaliningrad took two victories each and will compete for the first place in the pool in a personal duel on Saturday. As for the rest of the groups, the final standings will be determined only tomorrow. The tournament started with quite an unexpected defeat of the first-seeded pair Galina Boyko/Ekaterina Raevskaya. The girls from the Moscow region fell to the duo Moiseyeva/Syrtseva from Saint-Petersburg. However later Boyko and Raevskaya retrieved a defeat in the match against Judith Yalovaya and Yana Kiseleva. The local audience did not enjoy the performance of the Tatarstan duo Ekhlakova/Dolotkazina who had also received a wild card from the organisers. The team suffered two crushing defeats in two meets. Another small ceremony took place in the central court in the evening. Svetlana Popova, volleyball beach player from Mytishchi, celebrated her 22nd birthday on Friday. Unfortunately for Svetlana and her partner Olga Motrich, they dropped their match to Vorotnikova/Vakulenko from the Krasnodar region. The bitter defeat was a little sweetened by the gift presented to Svetlana Popova by representative of the Russian Volleyball Federation Ilya Volodarsky and the management of the Mytishchi club after the game.

«Sadly I failed to make a 100 percent birthday gift to myself. We were given a chance in the second match but in the third set I did not feel well. Obviously the heat wave that has been holding up for a few days in Kazan has affected us today. It was very kind and unexpected to get a gift from the Russian Volleyball Federation and our club’s administration. I thank them so much!” said the birthday girl Svetlana Popova after the ceremony.

In men’s pools the situation is more obvious. Basically all the playoff players have been decided. The Saturday matches will determine the pool winners that will get an advantage in drawing. First-seeded Alexander Likholetov/Evgeny Romashkin confirmed their top rank with two easy wins and no dropped matches. A few teams, among which are second-seeded Karpukhin/Samoshkin from Kaliningrad, Birlov/Glagolev and Arkaev/Sokolov from Mytishchi and Makhortov/Kharchenko from Anapa also took two victories.