Mason, Ohio, USA, May 20, 2016 – Fighting through a day of three rounds of competition and some drizzling skys to set the final four for Saturday, the biggest quarterfinal upset Friday saw USA’s 10th-seeded Ryan Doherty/John Mayer defeat top-seeded USA compatriots top-seeded Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson in three sets to advance to the final day of the double-gender FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP.
Joining USA’s Doherty/Mayer will be second-seeded fellow Americans Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena, Brazil’s 13th-seeded young lions Gustavo Carvalhaes/Saymon Barbosa and Canada’s seventh-seeded Josh Binstock/Sam Schachter.
The event, which is one of the last three Olympic qualifiers through the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour is being held through Saturday at the prominent Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio and the seventh tournament in the stretch of eight straight events on the FIVB World Tour. Next week the FIVB World Tour returns to Russia for the double-gender FIVB Moscow Grand Slam.
SEMI MATCHUPS
To start Saturday’s final day, the men’s semifinal matches will open with USA’s Doherty/Mayer facing off against Brazil’s 22-year old phenoms Carvalhaes/Barbosa followed by Canada’s Binstock/Schachter lining up against USA’s Dalhausser/Lucena. This will be the first meeting for all four teams in a FIVB World Tour event.
In the first men’s semifinal, USA’s Doherty/Mayer are playing in their ninth FIVB World Tour event as a team with a best finish of fifth place. In Cincinnati, they have a 5-1 record with their only setback to Canada’s final four team of Josh Binstock/Sam Schachter. Brazil’s youthful Carvalhaes/Barbosa are playing in just their eighth FIVB World Tour event with three bronze medals, both won in Brazil and last year’s FIVB Rio Open and this year at the FIVB Maceio Open. In Cincinnati, the dynamic duo has a 5-0 record including two wins over USA’s Hyden/Bourne.
In the second semifinal, USA’s Dalhausser/Lucena are playing in their 13th FIVB World Tour event as a team with eight final four finishes, including four gold medals and four silver medals. Individually, Dalhausser, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist playing with Todd Rogers, has played in 93 FIVB World Tour events and has 33 career FIVB gold medals. Lucena has played in 82 FIVB World Tour events with four gold medals.
Canada’s Binstock/Schachter have played as a team in 27 FIVB World Tour events with four final four finishes including one gold medal (2014 in Parana, Argentina. Overall,
The double-gender $150,000 FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP, started Tuesday and concludes on Saturday. It is the 14th men’s event of the season and 11th women’s stop on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour that started with three events at the end of 2015.
SEMI QUOTES
Celebrating their upset of compatriots Gibb/Patterson, both Doherty and Mayer had plenty to say.
Said Doherty afterwards, “Rainy is not ideal, it makes it harder to make the ball float. It's the same bad conditions for everybody. We were able to grind through it and get points when we needed them. It is real exciting (to be in the semifinals), medal rounds you get a chance to win a medal on the FIVB World Tour against the best players in the world. It's always exciting, especially this one being in our home country. We are hoping to do some big things tomorrow.
Mayer added, “I thought Ryan sided-out really well. We stayed steady. They stayed on Ryan, I thought they'd come to me at some point but they went to Ryan and he was consistent. We made a couple big cover plays and transition plays and served consistent.”
Following his team’s win over Australia, USA’s Dalhausser commented, “It was our best match of the tournament. We were crisp, I think we only gave up maybe two or three points on serve-receive. We put on the pressure, put them in bad spots with our serve, Nick played good defense and I had a couple blocks.”
We'll get a little work done here (medical), we haven't gotten any work done all week. Then we'll get a nice meal in, ice and call it a night.
QUARTERFINAL RESULTS
In Friday’s first quarterfinal all played during constant drizzling rain, USA’s DohertyMayer stunned USA compatriots Gibb/Patterson in three sets, 21-19, 18-21 and 15-12 in 45 minutes. The second quarterfinal saw Brazil’s talented youthful Carvalhaes/Barbosa defeated USA’s John Hyden/Tri Bourne in straight sets, 21-19, 22-20 in 34 minutes. It was the second time this week that the Brazilians beat this American team.
In the all-Canadian matchup, Canada’s Binstock/Schachter came back and then held off their Canadian compatriots 11th-seeded Grant O’Gorman/Sam Pedlow in three sets, 19-21, 21-18 and 15-12 in 48 minutes.
In the final men’s quarterfinal match of the day, USA’s Dalhausser/ Lucena stopped Australia’s ninth-seeded Isaac Kapa/Christopher McHugh in straight sets, 21-13, 21-15 in 29 minutes.
The quarterfinal losers leave Cincinnati with official fifth place finishes, $3,375 in prize money and 300 points for the team for the FIVB World Tour Rankings.
FIVB CINCINNATI OPEN PURSE/POINTS
The gold medal teams at the FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP, will split $11,000 and 500 points, the silver $8,000 and 450 points, the bronze $6,000 400 points and fourth place $4,500 and 450 points.
ON THE HORIZON
With placement points for the FIVB Olympic Rankings for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games continuing, the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour continues with events over eight straight weeks through the end of May. In all, Brazil is hosting five international events in 2016. In addition to Maceió, Rio, Vitoria and Fortaleza, the Brazil events conclude with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Aug. 6-18).
The FIVB World Tour was in Europe for two events over the last two weeks. Up first was in Russia two weeks followed by last week’s FIVB Antalya Open in Turkey (May 10-15). The tour is visiting the United States for the first time in 2016 this week for the FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP (May 17-21) in Mason, Ohio. Next week, the FIVB World Tour returns to Russia for the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam (May 24-29). After a one week respite, the final Olympic qualifying event on the FIVB World Tour will be the FIVB Hamburg Major Series in Germany (June 7-12).