Anapa, Russia, July 2, 2018 – Anapa returns as a stop on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, featuring a double-gender 1-star event at the VolleyGrad Beach Sports Centre from July 5 to 8.
Hosts Russia show the most depth with three pairs – Nadezda Makroguzova/Svetlana Kholomina, Ksenia Dabizha/Yulia Abalakina and Ekaterina Birlova/Evgenia Ukolova – seeded first to third, respectively, in the women’s main draw.
In the men’s main draw, Chinese pairs Gao Peng/Li Yang and Ha Likejiang/Wu Jiaxin are seeded first and second, respectively, followed by three Russian duos – Maxim Hudyakov/Ruslan Bykanov, Aleksandr Kramarenko/Vasili Ivanov and Sergey Gorbenko/Alexander Likholetov.
The Russian women will contend with teams Belgium, China, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Japan, Kazakhstan and Switzerland, while the host country’s men’s teams will face duos from Austria, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, England, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Norway, Sweden and Turkey.
The Anapa 1-star begins on Thursday, July 5 with the men’s and women’s qualification rounds, the main draw competition starts on Friday leading to Sunday’s medal matches.
The World Tour will be hosted by Anapa for the third time after FIVB Open events in 2013 and 2014.
In the first edition, the Russians dominated by winning both the men’s and women’s gold and bronze medals, while Germany won silver in each gender.
The following year, three different European nations – Latvia, Russia and Switzerland – climbed the men’s podium, while Germany and two Russian duos finished first, second and third in the women’s event.
For information on the tournament, including the entry list, click
here.
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FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour - Anapa