Trips to Toronto at stake in Long Beach

Long Beach, Calif., United States, August 24, 2016 – With the Rio 2016 Olympic Games over, the FIVB World Tour resumes here this week with the US$800,000 ASICS World Series of Beach Volleyball as the event is the last international stop to help set the field for the 2016 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals to be staged September 13-18 in Toronto, Canada.

The top eight pairs from the men’s and women’s FIVB World Tour with a maximum of two teams per country will qualify for the US$500,000 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals along with four “wild card” selections per gender for the second annual event to be held on Polson’s Pier in Toronto.  The winning teams will share $100,000 first-place prizes.

A total of 12 men’s and 11 women’s teams are still in the running for the FIVB World Tour berths in the season-ending event on the 2015-2016 international calendar.  The inaugural SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals was staged last October in the United States on a south Florida beach in Fort Lauderdale.

Once the field is determined after the completion of this week’s ASICS World Series of Beach Volleyball, the “elite eight” pairs from the FIVB World Tour and the four “wild card” tandems will be placed into four pools of three teams each.  Based on their pool performance, each team in the groups will advance to the elimination rounds where the winning pool pairs will receive a “bye” into the quarter-finals.

Here is how the “Trip to Toronto” is shaping up for the eight berths available per gender from the FIVB World Tour.

Men – Defending SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals champions Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt are not ranked among the top eight teams on the international circuit, but the reigning Olympic and world champions are expected to receive one of the four “wild card” berths.  The Brazilians played a limited 2015-2016 FIVB schedule due to their participation in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games where the pair topped the podium by defeating Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai in the Copacabana “mid-night” finale August 19.  The Italians and Dutch Olympic bronze medal winners Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen are other leading candidates for Toronto “wild cards” along with a team from Canada.

2015 FIVB World Tour Finals gold medal winners Alison Cerutti (left) and Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil

Dalhausser and Lucena defeated Alison and Bruno in Fort Lauderdale pool play last October, but dropped the finale for the …

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