Press Release

STAVANGER, NORWAY, July 2, 2004 - Eight teams from five countries each posted 2-0 Beach Volleyball match marks here Friday after the first two winner's bracket rounds in the men's US$360,000 ConocoPhillips Open.

While six of the top eight-seeded teams were unbeaten Friday, the teams of 22nd-seeded Dax Holdren/Stein Metzger of the United States and 26th-seeded Niklas Rademacher/David Klemperer of Germany each posted a pair of upset wins.

Both teams entered this week's SWATCH-FIVB World Tour event after placing 25th last week in the Germany Grand Slam event in Berlin. The Germans now face second-seeded Mariano Baracetti and Martin of Conde of Argentina Saturday while Holdren and Metzger challenge third-seeded Franco Neto and Tande Ramos of Brazil.

Top-seeded Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos opened defense of their ConocoPhillips Open title with wins over teams from Spain and Brazil. Emanuel and Ricardo play eighth-seeded Eric Fonoimoana and Kevin Wong of the United States in their first match Saturday.

Fourth-seeded Sascha Heyer and Markus Egger of Switzerland face fifth-seeded Todd Rogers and Sean Scott of the United States in the other match in the third-round of the winner's bracket. Heyer and Egger missed qualifying for the Olympics since the Swiss have two other higher ranked teams on the Athens qualifying list. Rogers and Scott are still in contention for the second USA berth, but they are on the "brink" of elimination as they are 284 points behind Holdren and Metzger.

With the women's medal matches set for Saturday in the third of five-straight mixed gender events on the 2004 SWATCH-FIVB World Tour, the men's competition concludes Sunday when the final two teams compete for the $27,000 first-place prize.