A small village in the Mazury region of Poland will take another step in establishing itself as one of the world’s major Beach Volleyball sites as the sixth and final SWATCH FIVB World Tour Grand Slam event on the 2010 international calendar will be staged in Stare Jablonki August 2-8. Featuring men’s-only competition for the first four years, the promoters for the event at the Hotel Anders increased their international awareness the past two seasons with a double gender tournament with edition No. 7 featuring both men and women competing for US$600,000 in prize money. The Hotel Anders Grand Slam will be the second of two SWATCH FIVB World Tour stops in Poland in 2010 as Myslowice will host a $190,000 men’s-only event at the end of May (25-30) for the second-straight year. The site of the youth (2006) and junior (2007) world championships, Myslowice also hosted a women’s SWATCH stop in 2008. The 2009 Stare Jablonki gold medals were claimed by teams from Brazil as Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca topped the women’s podium followed by a men’s title for Benjamin Insfran and Pedro Salgado. Brazilians tandems have won both women’s titles at the Hotel Anders and five of the previous six men’s gold medals. Juliana and Larissa defeated Louise Bawden and Becchara Palmer 21-14 and 21-16 in the 38-minute 2009 women’s finale in Stare Jablonki as the Australians were both competing in their first-ever SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal match. Bawden and Palmer, who had to win two qualifying matches to advance to the 32-team Main Draw as the 26th-seeded tandem, won six of eight Main Draw matches with both setbacks to Brazilian pairs. Benjamin and Salgado won their first-ever SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal together as the Brazilians upset 2009 world champions Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann of Germany 23-21 and 21-16 in the 55-minute finale. A foot injury forced Emanuel Rego from the 2009 Hotel Anders event after he and Ricardo Santos topped the Stare Jablonki podium in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008.  Grzegorz Fijalek and Mariusz Prudel posted the best finish for Polish team in Stare Jablonki with a seventh in 2009 after being eliminated by Gavira and Herrera.  Pictured to the left below are Pedro Salgado (left) and Benjamin Insfran, who won the 2009 Stare Jablonki men's gold medal as both players each achieved their 10th SWATCH FIVB World Tour title.