Germany’s Laboureur & Sude on track at Xiamen Open

 Xiamen, China, April 20, 2018 – Germany’s Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude are back on track at the 2018 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Xiamen Open topping their pool by defeating fellow German’s Victoria Bieneck and Isabel Schneider, 2-0 (21-8, 21-12).

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After a shaky start to the year with a 17th place finish in Fort Lauderdale in March, Laboureur/Sude are feeling confident entering their third edition of the Xiamen Open.

“We’re really happy, because now we just have one game today. It’s always nice and a special game when you play against your own country, it’s a different pressure and today we could handle it very well. This was our goal after not so good tournament in Fort Lauderdale. We practiced hard, we had four weeks in Tenerife to come back stronger and that’s the reward let’s say,” said Sude.

Chantal Laboureur (right) and Julia Sude from Germany

Posting two smooth wins within Pool B in less than an hour of total court time secured the top spot and direct entry into the second round of single elimination.

“We had quite good tactics I would say and we were also stable in our elements I would say. We tried to really do what we discussed before and this worked out really well and also in our side-out we managed to be stable enough and I think that was the key,” said Laboureur.

The German pair have earned previous success in China taking bronze twice before in Fuzhou and are now fully focused on the upcoming season.

 “We go home for one week and then we go to Huntington Beach and Brazil, so now the season really starts for us because Fort Lauderdale was very early, but we feel like we’re back on court now,” said Sude.

2017 Xiamen bronze medal winners Bieneck/Schneider also progress after defeating Finland’s Taru Lahti-Liukkonen and Anniina Parkkinen in round one.

Sarah Pavan (left) from Canada and Kerri Walsh Jennings from the USA

Top seeds Canada’s Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes had a tough centre court match against USA’s Kerri Walsh Jennings and Nicole Branagh, finally earning the win to top pool A, 2-1 (21-15, 22-24, 18-16).

USA’s April Ross and Alexandra Klineman who won the year opening 4-Star Dela Beach Open in The Hague, end the day top of Pool D after beating Switzerland’s Nina Betschart and Tanja Hüberli, 2-0 (21-16, 21-13).

China favourites Wang Fan and Xia Xinyi make it through defeating Taiana Lima and Carol Horta Maximo from Brazil in the closing match of the day 2-1 (18-21, 21-18, 15-13).

Men’s Main Draw

Spanish team Pablo Herrera Allepuz and Adrian Gavira Collado took the gold medal in Xiamen in 2016. They have plans to do the same and start by winning Pool F by defeating Latvia’s Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs, 2-1 (21-19, 15-21, 15-11).

“We’re really happy that we are first in the pool and we can rest for today,” said Gavira.

“It’s really nice to be back in China, we won the gold medal here two years ago, so we hope to repeat this. It will be really, really difficult, but we will try. We’re in the second round now and we will fight for that, we are on the way,” said Gavira.

Pablo Herrera Allepuz (left) and Adrián Gavira Collado from Spain meet Edgars Tocs of Latvia at the net

“We have been training in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, we’ve been practicing from January until April, so we have a good condition there. The temperature is between 20 and 28 degrees in winter so it’s really nice,” said Gavira.

“The conditions here are good, it’s like Tenerife, like Spanish weather. For us it’s OK, some days it’s quite windy and quite cold, some days it’s hot, so it changes, but it’s really nice,” said Herrera.

Plavins/Tocs also progress into second round single elimination after beating Brazil’s Alvaro Morais Filho and Saymon Barbosa Santos.Adrian Heidrich and Mirco Gerson from Switzerland continue their success in Xiamen, earning another win to complete the day top of Pool C by winning against Canada’s Sam Pedlow and Sam Schachter, 2-0 (21-19, 21-11).

Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt defeat USA’s Theodore Brunner and John Hyden in round one

Top seeds Piotr Kantor and Batorsz Losiak and Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen both earn the wins to top Pool A and B and Olympic champions Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt take the first round match against Theodore Brunner and John Hyden, 2-0 (23-21, 21-17), to stay in contention in Xiamen.