Gstaad, Switzerland, July 5, 2016 - One Brazilian team was in and the other out, but a couple of late withdrawals later, the out tandem was back into the men’s qualifier here Tuesday at the $800,000 Gstaad Major as the FIVB World Tour returns to the Swiss village for the record 17th-straight season.
Later in the day Tuesday, the out team (Saymon Barbosa/Gustavo 'Guto' Carvalhaes) remained in the third of five SWATCH Major Series events on the 2015-2016 FIVB World Tour calendar while the in pair (Oscar Brandao/Thiago Santos Barbosa) were ousted from the Gstaad Major qualifier.
To start play Tuesday in the Gstaad Major, four country quota matches were played for teams from Austria, Brazil and the United States where Oscar and Thiago posted a pair of wins to advance to the qualifier by defeating compatriots Andre Loyola/Ricardo Santos 2-1 (18-21, 21-19, 17-15) in 55 minutes and Saymon/Guto 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) in 34 minutes.
The country quota playoff also saw victories by Felix Koraimann/Daniel Mullner over Austrian rivals Julian Horl/Daniel Hupfer 2-1 (21-18, 15-21, 15-8) in 46 minutes and Ryan Doherty/John Mayer over the American Crabb brothers (Taylor and Trevor) 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) in 32 minutes.
With two late withdrawals, a pair of lucky losers spots were available and two draws were held to fill the last two spots for the first-round of qualifying action. Saymon and Guto won the first draw over the Crabb brothers with the Americans the victors in the second draw with Horl and Hupfer.
As things progressed, the 14th-seeded Oscar and Thiago dropped their opening qualifying match to 14th-seeded Anders Lund Hoyer/Peter Kildegaard of Denmark 2-0 (19-21, 24-22, 15-13) in 51 minutes while top-seeded Saymon and Guto defeated 32nd-seeded Fabio Berta/Luca Muller of Switzerland 2-0 (21-12, 21-16) in 27 minutes and the fifth-seeded Crabbs posted a 2-1 (21-19, 18-21, 15-13) win in 42 minutes over 28th-seeded Jasper Bouter/Tom van Steenis of the Netherlands.