Press release

London, Great Britain, July 30, 2012 – Tuesday men’s schedule will feature more great matchups as round 2 of three rounds of pool play at the London 2012 Olympic Games is completed in the purpose-built, sold-out 15,000-seat stadium on the grounds of the iconic Horse Guards Parade as the majestic venue includes a portion of adjacent St. James Park in historic central London.

With 24 men’s teams from 19 countries competing in London, Tuesday’s matches, round robin pool play continues with three sessions on Monday starting at 9 a.m. and continuing to the final match of the day starting at 11 p.m. with 12 of the men’s and 12 of the women’s teams in the field in action.

In the list of such exciting Olympic matches, the highlight matches of Tuesday’s men’s schedule appear to be in the morning when Brazil’s top-seeded reigning FIVB SWATCH World Champions Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego play against Switzerland’s 12th-seeded Jefferson Bellaguarda/Patrick Heuscher in the morning session at 10 a.m. and in the night session when USA’s reigning Olympic champions Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers challenge Spain’s 11th-seeded Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera at 9 p.m.

Brazil’s Alison/Emanuel are 1-0 in pool play while Switzerland’s Bellaguarda/Heuscher are 0-1 and the Brazilian’s have a 2-0 series lead in international matches against the Swiss and they haven’t met since the 2011 Moscow Grand Slam.

USA’s Dalhausser/Rogers and Spain’s Gavira/Herrera are both 1-0 and in their lenghty series history, the USA has an 11-2 advantage but they haven’t played since 2011 in Stavanger, Norway. Herrera is a three-time Olympian.

Preceeding the Brazil/Switzerland match will be the first match of the day between Czech Republic’s Petr Benes/Premysl Kuballa and Japan’s 23rd-seeded Kentaro Asahi/Katsuhiro Shiratori at 9:00 a.m. Both teams are 0-1 and the Czechs lead the series between the two teams 1-0 from when they last played in 2010 in Prague.

In the midday session Tuesday, the first men’s match at 2:30 p.m. will see Latvia’s 17th-seeded Martins Plavins/Janis Smedins challenge Venezuela’s 20th-seeded Igor Hernandez/Jesus Villafane. Latvia is 1-0 and Venezuela 0-1 and Latvia has a 1-0 edge in the series thought the two teams haven’t met in over three years.

The second midday session men’s match at 3:30 is between Netherland’s Reinder Nummerdor/Rich Schuil and Germany’s eighth-seeded Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik with Netherlands 1-0 and Germany 0-1 in London so far and in their series Nummerdor/Schuil lead the series 5-3 with the Dutch winning twice in Berlin this year after the Germans won their meeting in Rome earlier this year.

The final men’s match of the day in the evening session at 10 p.m. as Italy’s 13th-seeded Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai will face Austria’s 24th-seeded Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst with the Italian 1-0 and he Austrians 0-1 and the Italians leading the series 2-0 with two FIVB SWATCH World Tour wins this year.

The talented tandems in London have been split equally into six pools, playing each team in their group, with the top two advancing to the single-elimination knockout phase that begins on August 3 along with the two best third-placed teams. The remaining four third-place teams will then compete in playoff matches to determine which pairs will fill the final two places in the 16-team eliminaation bracket’s first round.

For current information, visit www.fivb.org.