Olsztyn, Poland, July 17, 2016 – While the men in the US$800,000 Olsztyn Grand Slam complete pool play here Friday, the remaining 24 teams in the women’s field face three rounds of elimination bracket matches to set the field for Saturday’s “final four” contests in the FIVB World Tour stop.
Six of the top-eight-seeded teams captured their pools Thursday during the final rounds of group play to earn “byes” to the second-round of elimination. Top-seeded Kinga Kolosinska/Monika Brzostek of Poland and seventh-seeded Juliana Felisberta/Taiana Lima dropped their final matches Thursday afternoon to face first-round of elimination matches Friday morning.
While the Polish pair was upset by 16th-seeded Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude of Germany, the Brazilian defeat was a forfeit as Juliana suffered a right shoulder injury in the third and deciding set with the match tied 6-6 with 10th-seeded Liliana Fernandez/Elsa Baquerizo of Spain. According to tournament officials, the injury is not expected to force a withdrawal of Juliana from the second annual Olsztyn Grand Slam.
Juliana Felisberta (second from left) being tended to after injuring her shoulder against Spain Thursday.
Here are the opening elimination matches for women on the Crooked Lake courts behind Hotel Omega (seeding).
Round 1 (losers place 17th)
• Juliana Felisberta/Taiana Lima, Brazil (7) vs. Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler, Germany (11) - first FIVB World Tour meeting between the two teams.
• Fan Wang/Yuan Yue, China (18) vs. Teresa Mersmann/Isabel Schneider, Germany (21, Q4) - the Chinese lead the FIVB series between the two teams 2-1.
• Victoria Bieneck/Julia Grossner, Germany (19, Q3) vs. Vasiliki Arvaniti/Penny Karagkouni, Greece (20) - first FIVB World Tour meeting between the two teams.
• Kinga Kolosinska/Monika Brzostek, Poland (1) vs. Natalia Dubovcova/Dominika Nestarcova, Slovak Republic (23) - the FIVB World Tour series is tied 2-2 between the two teams.
• Rimke Braakman/Jolien Sinnema, The Netherlands (25) vs. Melissa Humana-Paredes/Taylor Pischke, Canada (17) - the Canadians lead the FIVB series between the two teams 1-0.
• Maria Antonelli/Liliane Maestrini, Brazil (13, Q2) vs. Ana Gallay/Georgina Klug, Argentina (14) the Argentineans lead the FIVB series between the two teams 1-0.
• Nina Betschart/Tanja Huberli, Switzerland (22) vs. Jantine van der Vlist/Sophie van Gestel, Netherlands (15) - the Dutch lead the FIVB series between the two teams 1-0.
• Marketa Slukova/Barbora Hermannova, Czech Republic (12) vs. Eduarda Lisboa/Elize Maia, Brazil (9, Q1) - the Czech Republic team leads the FIVB series between the two teams 1-0.
Round 2 (losers place 9th)
• Larissa Franca/Talita Antunes, Brazil (2) vs. Brazil vs. Germany winner
• Lauren Fendrick/Brooke Sweat, United States (8) vs. China vs. Germany winner
• Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel, The Netherlands (6) vs. Germany vs. Greece winner
• Sarah Pavan/Heather Bansley, Canada (4) vs. Poland vs. Slovak Republic winner
• Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst, Germany (3) vs. The Netherlands vs. Canada winner
• Liliana Fernandez/Elsa Baquerizo, Spain (10) vs. Brazil vs Argentina winner
• Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas, Brazil (5) vs. Switzerland vs. The Netherlands winner
• Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude, Germany (16) vs. Czech Republic vs. Brazil winner
Quarter-finals (losers place 5th)
• Brazil or Germany vs. United States, China or Germany
• The Netherlands, Germany or Greece vs. Canada, Poland or Slovak Republic
• Germany, The Netherlands or Canada vs. Spain, Brazil or Argentina
• Brazil, Switzerland or The Netherlands vs. Germany, Czech Republic or Brazil
Here is a recap of Thursday’s men’s pool play action (Main Draw seed).
• Pool A - Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak, Poland (1) and Grant O'Gorman/Sam Pedlow of Canada (17) tied with 1-0 match marks.
• Pool B - Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Brazil (2) and Michal Kadziola/Jakub Szalankiewicz, Poland (15) tied with 1-0 match marks.
• Pool C - Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson, United States leads with a 2-0 record.
• Pool D - Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera, Spain (4) and Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Artem Yarzutkin, Russia (13) tied with 2-0 records.
• Pool E - Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk, Canada (5) and Vitor Felipe/Alvaro Filho, Brazil (12) tied with 2-9 match marks.
• Pool F - Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri, Italy (11) and Ruslan Bykanov/Yaroslav Koshkarev, Russia (11) tied with 1-0 records.
Ruslan Bykanov (pictured to the right) and Yaroslav Koshkarev of Russia posted an upset win over Latvia Thursday.
• Pool G - Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Solberg, Brazil (7) and Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, Poland (10) tied with 1-0 records.
• Pool H - All four teams are tied with a 1-1 record, including Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst, Austria (8), Tri Bourne/John Hyden, United States (9), Michal Bryl/Kacper Kujawiak, Poland (24) and Philip Gabathuler/Mirco Gerson, Switzerland (25).
The Olsztyn Grand Slam will have elimination rounds for men Saturday with the women competing in their “final four” matches. The men’s semi-final and medal matches will be played Sunday. The winning teams will share the $57,000 first-place prizes.