2006 World Championships   More World Championship news       Tournament info: France

France and Czech Republic start well

Le Cannet, France, July 28, 2005 – Hosts France and the Czech Republic both made a perfect start to the 2006 Men’s World Championship third round tournament – Europe Pool K in Le Cannet on Thursday when they recorded straight sets victories over Finland and the Netherlands respectively.

France beat Finland 3-0 (25-15, 25-19, 25-14) while in the early match, the Czech Republic stunned the Netherlands 3-0 (25-18, 25-20, 25-18).

The group is the third of four European third round tournaments being played this month (Italy is the final tournament, which starts on Friday) where the top two sides from each tournament claim final round tickets. Since Europe has nine vacancies in the final round in Japan, the third placed side in each tournament will enter a four-way play-off for the one remaining ticket.
Pic: The Czech Republic's Jakub Novotny attacks while Marko Klok from the Netherlands tries to block
In Le Cannet, France (ranked sixth in the world) and the Netherlands (13th) are favourites with the Czech Republic (24th) and Finland (32nd) both having advanced from the second round.

Each team play each other in a round-robin format over three days with two games per day until Saturday.

On Friday the Netherlands play Finland at 16:00 GMT (18:00 local time) followed by France taking on the the Czech Republic at 19:00 GMT (21:00 local time).