USA’s top-seeded Gibb/Patterson lead seven 3-0 duos to men’s main draw at FIVB Cincinnati Open

Mason, Ohio, USA, May 19, 2016 – USA’s top-seeded Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson continue to keep their goal of playing in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games within reach as they completed their undefeated pool play Thursday by winning the final two of their three pool play matches Thursday over team from Poland and Austria in the double-gender FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP.The event, which is one of the last three Olympic qualifiers through the FIVB World Tour is being held through Saturday at the prominent Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio and the seventh tournament in the stretch of eight straight events on the FIVB World Tour. Next week the FIVB World Tour returns to Russia for the double-gender FIVB Moscow Grand Slam.With seven teams going 3-0 and one going 2-1, three teams from host country United States and one each from Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Brazil all earned a bye by virtue of winning their respective pools into the second elimination round on Friday. The double-gender $150,000 FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP, started Tuesday and concludes on Saturday. It is the 14th men’s event of the season and 11th women’s stop on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour that started with three events at the end of 2015. Currently sixth in the provisional Olympic Rankings through the FIVB World Tour, USA’s Gibb/Patterson closed out their pool play matches with a pair of match wins on Thursday. First, the opened the day by defeating Poland’s 17th-seeded Michal Bryl/Kacper Kosiak in straight sets, 21-18, 21-13 in only 31 minutes. They completed their tri-fecta by beating Austria’s 16th-seeded Thomas Kunert/Christoph Dressler in two sets again, 21-14, 21-15 in just 29 minutes.Gibb commented after the win against the Austrian duo, “It’s a big win for us. Winning pools is huge. There are a lot of good teams out here, so winning is big. It took a little adjusting to switch back from the AVP balls to the FIVB Mikasa balls. The first couple of matches we had a tough time passing. But in this second match we got into a groove there.”USA had three teams go undefeated in pool play. In addition to Gibb/Patterson, also 3-0 to win their respective pools were USA’s second-seeded Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena and USA’s surprising 19th-seeded brothers Trevor Crabb/Taylor Crabb.Seldom at a loss for words, USA’s Lucena said after his team’s win over Poland, “You never want to lose, it’s very good that we …

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