Press release

London, Great Britain, August 6, 2012 – Numbers keep piling in and they keep adding up well for women’s stats both as a team and individual at this year’s beach volleyball competition of the London 2012 Olympic Games through Sunday’s Day 9, which includes the quarterfinal matches.

All the crowd-pleasing, heart-pounding action is being held 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.

As women’s semifinals are set to begin Monday evening along with the men’s semifinals, even more impressive team and individual official statistics continue to reflect the depth and quality of the field here at Horse Guards Parade.

By the end of play Sunday, a total of four teams in each gender have advanced to semifinals which will be held for both genders on Tuesday, Aug. 7.

Again, through Sunday Day 9 of this Olympic Games competition, of the 50 women’s matches held, 30 were two-set matches with five seed breakthroughs with an average time of 36 minutes per match.  The other 20 matches all went to the tie-break saw just four seed breakthroughs with an average time of 54 minutes.

In the team stats catagory, China’s second-seeded Chen Xue/Xi Zhang have the most aces as a team with 24, second is USA’s fourth-seeded Jennifer Kessy/April Ross with 19 and third is Austria’s 15th-seeded sisters Doris Schwaiger/Stefanie Schwaiger with 18 aces each.

In total blocks by a team, Russia’s 23rd-seeded Anastasia Vasina/Anna Vozakova lead with 20, in a three-way tie for second are Brazil’s fifth-seeded Maria Antonelli/Talita Antunes, China’s Xue/Zhang and USA’s third-seeded Misty May-Treanor/Kerri Walsh with 17 each.

In team attack success percentage, leading is China’s Xue/Zhang at 60%, second is USA’s fourth-seeded Jennifer Kessy/April Ross at 59% while tied for third place are Brazil’s fifth-seeded Maria Antonelli/Talita Antunes, Germany’s 12th-seeded Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler and Greece’s 14th-seeded Vasiliki Arvaniti/Maria Tsiartsiani at 55%.

Austria’s Schwaiger sisters lead with 117 digs, second is Czech Republic’s Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova with 116 and third is USA’s May-Treanor/ Walsh with 110 total for the team.

Individually for the tournament, China’s Xue continues to lead two categories with 18 total aces and an attack success percentage of 66%.

Individually for the tournament, Russia’s young suprise team of these Olympic Games, Vasina/Vozakova, lead one category and are second in another and tied for a third. Vasina is leading blocks with 20 total while Vozakova is tied for third in points scored with 96 and is second in digs with 73.

USA’s May-Treanor is leading the tournament in digs with 75, Austria’s Stefanie Schwaiger leads with 105 total points scored and Germany’s Katrin Holtwick leads the top serve speed with one of 82 km/h.

In points, second is China’s Zhang third with 102.

In addition to leading a team categories and one individual category, Austria’s Schwaiger sisters, who finished fifth in the Beijing 2008 Olympics as well as here in the London 2012 Olympic Games, are also among the individual tournament leaders as Doris Schwaiger is second in aces with 13 total.

In the serving speed catagory, behind Germany’s Holtwick second is  USA’s April Ross (81 km/h) and Germany’s Sara Goller (79 km/h). In total blocks, tied for second behind Vasina with 17 each for the tournament are Brazil’s Talita Antunes, China’s Xue and USA’s Walsh. Second in attack success percentage behind Xue at 63 per cent is is USA’s Ross at 62%.  Third ind digs behind USA’s May-Treanor and Russia’s Vozakova is Australia’s Cook with 65 total.

In some of the miscellaneous numbers, the longest women’s match through Thursday was one hour, nine minutes when Russia’s Ekaterina Khomyakova/Evgeniya Ukolova beat Canada’s Marie-Andree Lessard/Annie Martin 21-18, 28-30 and 15-13 on July 28. The shortest match length has been 28 minutes in three seperate matches, one each on July 28, July 30 and August 1.

The highest scoring two-set match is 87 recorded August 5 when USA’s Kessy/Ross defeated Czech Republic’s Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova, 25-23, 21-18 in 49 minutes and the highest scoring three-set match is 128 was July 31 when Brazil’s Maria Antonelli/Antunes defeated Germany’s Sara Goller/Laura Laudwig, 21-19, 29-31 and 15-13 in one hour, five minutes.

The highest scoring women’s set so far was during Brazil’s Antonelli/Antunes three-set win over Germany’s Goller/Ludwig when the German’s won the second set 31-29.

Single-match leaders are aces—tie between Brazil’s Maria Antonelli and Switzerland’s Simone Kuhn with seven each; blocks—Russia’s Vasina has the top two individual matches with nine against China and eight against Switzerland and digs—Russia’s Evgenia Ukolova with 26 against Canada.

Women’s beach volleyball continues daily at Horse Guards Parade in the London 2012 Olympic Games until the medal matches on Wednesday, August 8.