The celebrations of Britain’s John Garcia-Thompson and Steven Krotowski were short lived. After beating top seeds Casey Jennings and Kevin Wong of the United States, they lost in straight sets to Canada’s Josh Binstock and Richard Van Huizen
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Prague, Czech Republic, May 18, 2011 – Great Britain’s John Garcia-Thompson
and Steven Krotowski served up one of the biggest surprises of the
season so far on the FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Tour Prague Open
on Wednesday as they eliminated top seeds Casey Jennings and Kevin Wong from USA in the second round of the qualification tournament. Britain’s John Garcia-Thompson and Steven Krotowski, seeded 32 in a field of 64 qualification teams, sent the Americans home with a 25-23, 24-22 victory.
“Not aggressive enough”, Jennings said afterwards. “We were just waiting for them to give us the victory instead of grabbing them by the throat.” In the third and last round however Garcia-Thompson and Krotowski could not keep up their good work losing inside 35 minutes to Canada’s Josh Binstock and Richard Van Huizen 21-19, 21-16.
“We did not side out well in this game,” Krotowski said. “They served much better, getting us in trouble receiving. But this is a loss with a little silver lining. Those guys are my friends and for Josh it is the first time he qualifies for a main draw. So he will owe me a drink.”
A total of eight teams from five countries advanced to the main draw after three rounds on the hot and sunny courts in the Stvanice stadium. In addition to Binstock, Maverick Hatch and Sam Schachter, also from Canada, will be playing their first FIVB main draw tournament. Seeded 51st in the qualification tournament, they beat three higher ranking teams successively Dmitri Barsouk/Alexey Yutvalin (14th), Tim Verschueren/Audry Frankart (46th) and Karl Jaani/Rivo Vesik (3th).
Germany’s Markus Böckermann/Mischa Urbatzka (seeded 12th) and Sebastian Dollinger/Stefan Windscheif (2nd), Martin Laciga/Jonas Weingart (6th) and Sascha Heyer/Sebastian Chevallier (9th) from Switzerland, Russia’s Serguei Prokopiev/Konstantin Semenov (4th) and Sweden’s Stefan Gunnarsson/Hannes Brinkborg (10th) also seized a spot in the 32 teams main draw.
None of the four qualification teams from the Czech Republic succeeded in advancing to the main draw. Robert Kufa/Pavel Rotreki, Michal Rucka/Filip Kramar, Ondrej Hromadko/Tomas Salava and Jaroslav Pavlas/Miroslav Svoboda all lost their first round game. That leaves the host country with three pre-seeded teams in the main draw. Best represented countries in the main tournament are Brazil, Canada, Germany and Switzerland with each four teams.
Starting Thursday all eyes in the strong field of the main draw will be on Americans Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers. The olympic gold medalists won the first two tournaments of the Swatch World Tour 2011 in Brasilia and Shanghai and have not been beaten yet this year. They also own a record of 35-straight wins. Also competing in Prague are Brazilians Alison and Emanuel, who went home with the silver medal last year.
Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann from Germany, bronze medalists in 2010, will not be competing in Prague. The world champions, third in Shanghai two weeks ago, forfeited because of an injury. Reckermann contracted a sprain in the thigh according to their national federation and needs to rest for at least a week on doctor’s orders. Fellow countrymen David Klemperer and Eric Koreng also had to pull out with Koreng injured while training in Prague.
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