Warsaw, Poland, June 28, 2018 – The Monta Beach Volley Club on the banks of the Wisla river is now ready for the start of main draw action with 64 teams set to compete at the 4-star $300,000 2018 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event in Warsaw.
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The main draw's pool stage features eight pools of four teams per gender. In each pool, two matches will be played first, with the two winners securing their spots in the single elimination phase and playing each other later on Thursday for a direct ticket to the second elimination round. On Friday morning, the two losers will also face each other in the survival battles to stay in contention.
The women's competition starts at 09.00 local time. Ranked 30th in the qualification bracket, the Czech Republic’s Tereza Kotlasova and Daniela Resova will have the honour of opening the centre court for business with a Pool A match against top-seeded Canadians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan.
Jagoda Gruszczynska and Aleksandra Gromadowska will be the first Polish team in action on the centre court with their 9.50 game against Brazilian standouts Maria Antonelli and Carolina Solberg Salgado in Pool C. “I can say that we guarantee a great show to all fans,” Gromadowska promised before the tournament.
Ostrava gold medallists Barbora Hermannova and Marketa Slukova of the Czech Republic will play next with their Pool E opener against Norwegian qualifiers Oda Johanne Ulveseth and Ingrid Lunde, before vacating the centre court to home teams and their opponents for the next five slots.
Kinga Kolosinska and Katarzyna Kociolek, seeded eighth, will play against lucky losers Jamie Lynn Broder and Taylor Pischke of Canada in Pool H at 11.30.
The first men’s teams to take to the centre court are Poland’s Kacper Kujawiak and Maciej Rudol and fourth-seeded Dutchmen Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, facing each other for a 12.30 Pool D encounter.
“It's always nice to play in front of the home crowd, because the fans' support gives us extra motivation and strength. I hope that our results will be better than a year ago and for sure we will do our best to deliver a great performance and a lot of emotions to our supporters,” said Kujawiak.
In the next centre court slots, Grzegorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl will meet Mexico’s Juan Virgen and Lombardo Ontiveros in the Pool C opener, Mariusz Prudel and Jakub Szalankiewicz will measure up against the Netherlands’ Christiaan Varenhorst and Jasper Bouter in Pool C, before top-seeded Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak face Czech wild cards Vaclav Bercik and Jan Dumek.