News Beach volleyball 25/04/2014 Samoilovs and Smedins through to semis at FIVB Beach Volleyball Fuzhou Open Fuzhou, China, April 25, 2014 - Latvia's AleksandrsSamoilovs and Janis Smedins are through to the semifinals at the FIVB BeachVolleyball Fuzhou Open after overwhelming Olympic silver medalist Emanuel Regoand his new partner Pedro Solberg Salgado 2-0 (21-14, 21-19) on Friday.Topping Pool E, Samoilovs and Smedins progresseddirectly into the second round of the single elimination phase meeting Spain'sthird seeds Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira in their first match of the day.The Latvians had to come from one set down to win 2-1 (23-25, 21-17, 16-14).Their third round match proved less of a challengeagainst Emanuel and Pedro, defeating the newly-formed Brazilian pair in just 35minutes."They had more mistakes today," saidSmedins. "In pool matches we didn't play our best game, we also lost onematch. But we played good today, I feel happy about that."Smedins said that the victory against Pedro gave him a"special" feeling. "It's good to win against Pedro because we werefighting hard last year for the first place in the World Tour rankings. It'svery nice," said Smedins. Samoilovs and Smedins will play another Brazilian pair- Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt - for a spot in the gold medal matchon Saturday."It won't be an easy match. We need to play verygood to beat them (Alison/Bruno). We want to get a medal in the firsttournament of this year," said Smedins. In an exciting all-Brazilian showdown, Alison and Bruno came out on top againsttop-seeded compatriots Ricardo Alex Costa Santos and Alvaro Morais Filho 2-1(21-14, 16-21, 17-15) to reach the final four.The other semifinal will feature Jon Stiekema andChristiaan Varenhorst from the Netherlands and Italy's Paolo Nicolai and DanieleLupo.Stiekema and Varenhorst nailed two quick wins onFriday to advance, defeating Plavins and Solovejs of Latvia 2-0 (21-18, 21-17)in 34 minutes before easing past Swiss qualifiers Mats Kovatsch and JonasKissling 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) in 34 minutes as well. Nicolai and Lupo edged Alexander Brouwer and Michielvan Dorsten of the Netherlands 2-1 (18-21, 21-15, 15-11) to reach thesemifinals in Fuzhou for the second straight year.Last year the Italian duo grabbed the silver medalhere after going down to USA's Sean Rosenthal and Philip Dalhausser in thefinal. The defending champions were eliminated in the secondround of the knock-out phase, losing to Alison and Bruno 2-1 (15-21, 21-17,15-12).Fuzhou, capital of the Fujian province lies on thesoutheast coast of Chinese mainland and hosts the Open event for the secondstraight year. In addition to the Fuzhou Open, two other stops arescheduled in China in 2014 on the FIVB international schedule: the FIVBShanghai Grand Slam (April 29 to May 4) and the FIVB Xiamen Open (October 7 to12). All three are double-gender events.FuzhouOpen Tournament Page FuzhouOpen Tournament Notes 2014Beach Volleyball Media Guide Men’sresults Women’s results Print this Page News {{item.LocalShortDate}} {{item.Title}} All the News