Vaduz, Liechtenstein, August 8, 2018 – Teams from three continents and four different countries - Australia, Austria, the Netherlands and USA - were successful in Wednesday’s qualifications and completed the women’s main draw line-up at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event in Vaduz.
The top-seeded team in the 1-star event's qualification bracket, Nicole Laird and Brittany Kendall, were the first to secure their spot in the best 16 of the tournament. The Australians started off with a tough come-from-behind 2-1 (14-21, 21-19, 15-9) win over Austria’s Katharina Almer and Daniela Fankhauser and followed up with a much easier 2-0 (21-9, 21-12) victory over Poland’s Marta Lodej and Marta Duda in what was the shortest running match of the day.
Austria’s Dorina Klinger and Ronja Klinger, seeded third in the qualification tournament, claimed a straight-set win in the first qualification round – 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) over Sweden’s Jenny Stralman and Rebecka Dahlgren, and later managed to win the only three-setter in the second round – 2-1 (23-25, 21-16, 15-12) over Slovenia’s Nina Lovsin and Tjasa Kotnik.
USA’s Lara Dykstra in action at Vaduz
The other two successful qualifiers emerged from the bottom half of the seeding list. USA’s Alexandra Wheeler and Lara Dykstra, seeded 12th, won 2-1 (21-13, 20-22, 15-13) against fifth-seeded Italians Carolina Ferraris and Francesca Michieletto and went on to hammer out a 2-0 (21-14, 21-18) shutout of fourth-seeded Kim Huber and Tatjana Greber of Switzerland.
15th-seeded Puk Stubbe and Emma Piersma of the Netherlands delivered a 2-1 (14-21, 21-6, 15-10) upset of second-seeded Czechs Martina Maixnerova and Marie-Sara Stochlova in the first round and then shot forward to the main draw with an emphatic 2-0 (21-12, 21-14) victory over 10th-seeded Russians Ekaterina Filina and Ekaterina Lubenets.
The women’s main draw action is set to get underway at 11.30 local time on Thursday. Earlier on the same day, at 9.00, the first qualification round in the men’s competition will begin.