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Grinding for Gold starts Friday morning in Moscow
- Updated: May 27, 2016
Moscow, Russia, May 27, 2016 – The opening elimination rounds here Friday for men and women in the US$800,000 Moscow Grand Slam has produced interesting match ups as the FIVB World Tour event grinds towards its conclusion Sunday at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Centre.
Friday’s schedule for both genders will feature the Rounds of 24 and 16 contests to set the lineup for Saturday’s morning quarter-final matches that will produce the lineup for the afternoon’s semi-finals. The medal matches for the Moscow Grand Slam will be played Sunday afternoon with the gold medal teams sharing the $57,000 first-places prizes.
Defending and former Moscow Grand Slam champions are still “alive” in the competition, including 2015 gold medalists Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera of Spain on the men’s side and Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca of Brazil in the women’s eliminator. Also still competing in the second “big” event on the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour calendar are 2014 winners Yaroslav Koshkarev/Konstantin Semenov of Russia and April Ross/Kerri Walsh Jennings of the United States, and 2013 champions Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins of Latvia.
While the pairs of Talita/Larissa, Koshkarev/Semenov and Ross/Walsh Jennings earned a “bye” into the second-round of bracket play by winning their respective pools Thursday, Gavira/Herrera and Samoilovs/Smedins finished second in their groups and face first-round challenges Friday.
The 12th-seeded Gavira and Herrera confront 18th-seeded Markus Bockermann and Lars Fluggen of Germany in the first-round as the two teams will be meeting for the second-time on the FIVB World Tour. The Spaniards won the first meeting last June at the Porec Major in Croatia.
While Gavira/Herrera have already secured a spot for their country in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Bockermann/Fluggen are on the “bubble” with compatriots Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik for the final two berths awarded from the FIVB World Tour for the Copacabana quadrennial. Both German teams have compiled 4,610 points for their best 12 finishes since …
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