Press release

London, Great Britain, August 7, 2012 – Statistics reveal a lot about how a team is doing or how an individual is doing and this is easily seen with a view of the men’s stats at this year’s beach volleyball competition of the London 2012 Olympic Games through Saturday’s Day 8.

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.

The men‘s and women’ semifinals will be held Tuesday night. Impressive team and individual official statistics continue to reflect the depth and quality of the field here at Horse Guards Parade.

The men’s medal matches will be held on Thursday night and the women’s medal matches will be played Wednesday night so the men will have another day off to prepare for their medal matches.

Again, through Monday’s Day 10 of this Olympic Games competition, of the 46 men’s matches held, 36 were two-set matches with eight seed breakthroughs with an average time of 39 minutes per match.  The 14 matches that have gone to the tie-break has seen five seed breakthroughs with an average time of 56 minutes.

In the team stats catagory, Germany’s third-seeded Julius Brink/Jonas Reckermann have the most toal aces with 18, followed in second by Germany’s eighth-seeded Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik with 15 and third is USA’s second-seeded Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers with 12.

In total blocks by a team, Italy’s 13th-seeded Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai lead with 29 while while second is Brazil’s top-seeded Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego with 28 and tied for third is Poland’s ninth-seeded Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz with 23.

In team attack success percentage, leading is Netherlands’ fifth-seeded Reindeer Nummerdor/Richard Schuil at 61%, second Brazil’s seventh-seeded Pedro Cunha/Ricardo Santos with 59% and tied for third at 57% is Latvia’s 17th-seeded Martins Plavins/Janis Smedins and Germany’s Brink/Reckermann.

In team digs, Latvia’s Plavins/Smedins lead with 100, second is USA’s fourth-seeded Jake Gibb/Sean Rosenthal with 95 and third is Brazil’s Alison/Emanuel with 85.

Individually, Russia’s Konstanting Semenov and USA’s Dalhausser are tied in attack success percentage with 66% and Dalhausser is tied for second with Germany’s Matysik with nine total aces.

Leading the other five individual catagories and their totals after Day 10 are Germany’s Jonathan Erdmann (points-121), Germany’s Reckermann (aces-10), Italy’s Paolo Nicolai (blocks-29), Latvia’s Plavins (digs-78), and Latvia’s Ruslans Sorokins (top serve speed, 99 km/h).

In points, Latvia’s Plavins is second with 111 and third is Germany’s Reckermann with 104. In blocks, Brazil’s Alison is second with 28 and third is Poland’s Prudel wih 23.  Third in attack success percentage is Netherlands’ Nummerdor. In digs, second is Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev with 72 and third is USA’s Rosenthal with 70.

In some of the miscellaneous numbers, the longest men’s match through Saturday was one hour, nine minutes whenSwitzerland’s Chevallier/Sascha Heyer defeated Russia’s Prokopyev/Semenov, 28-26, 18-21 and 15-13 on July 30. The shortest men’s match length has been 33 minutes when USA’s Jake Gibb/Sean Rosenthal defeated South Africa’s Freedom Chiya/Grant Goldschmidt, 21-10, 21-11 on July 28.

The highest scoring men’s set so far was 29-27 in the first set during Prokopyev/Semenov’s win over China’s Wu/Xu on August 1.

The highest score for a two-set match is 89 when Brazil’s Cerutti/Emanuel Rego beat Italy’s Lupo/Nicolai, 26-24, 21-18 in 43 minutes on August 2.

The highest score for a three-set match is 121 from two matches: Switzerland’s Sascha Heyer/Chevallier beat Russia’s Prokopyev/Semenov, 28-26, 18-21 and 15-13 in 69 minutes in July 30 and on August 1 when Russia’s Prokopyev/Semenov defeated China’s Wu/Xu, 29-27, 17-21 and 15-12 in 67 minutes.

For single-match highs, statistical leaders are:Canada’s Martin Reader (aces-5), tied for most blocks in a match are Germany’s Erdmann and USA’s Dalhausser with nine each, and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev (29 digs).

Brazil’s Alison and Ricardo are tied for second with single game highs of eight blocks with Cerutti getting it twice and Ricardo once.

In digs in a single match, Switzerland’s Sebastian Chevallier is second with 26 and USA’s Rogers is third with 25.

Men’s beach volleyball continues daily at Horse Guards Parade in the London 2012 Olympic Games until the medal matches on Thursday, August 9.