Portugal's Sebastiao Alves dives for the Mikasa as he and teammate Fernando Silva defeated a team from the Czech Republic during Thursday's pool play at the 2010 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships in Porto.

Porto, Portugal, July 29, 2010 — Playing the first of three main draw pool play matches Thursday, the world’s best young men’s Beach Volleyball teams are scorching the sun-baked Porto sand at the 2010 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships, the ninth annual event for players under 19.

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FIVB Beach Volleyball

Pool play will finish Friday with two matches for each of the men’s teams in the double-gender event at the venue, located adjacent to the Edificio Transparente at the Esplanda do Rio de Janeiro. The world championship event runs through Sunday at the sunny seaside Porto event site with the nationally-televised semifinals, bronze and gold medal matches for both genders being played on the event’s final day.

With 24 teams divided into six four-team pools, Canada, Poland and Russia each had two teams win their opening matches while the other six countries posting single pool-play wins were Austria, France, New Zealand, Norway, host country Portugal and Ukraine. The event, which is free to the public, has a total of 88 teams (46 women’s and 42 men’s) from 32 countries playing in Porto at the 2010 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships.

Three of the four teams that advanced from Wednesday’s Qualification tournament won their opening pool play matches Thursday. Seeded 22nd, 23rd and 24th respectively, winning their matches Thursday were the tandems of Canada’s Aaron Nusbaum/Grant O’Gorman (No. 13 qualification seed), Poland’s Bartoz Ksiezarek/David Popek (No. 3 Q-seed) and Russia’s Maxim Anufriev/Artem Kucherenko (No. 2 Q-seed). The Canadians defeated a team from Spain while the Polish tandem beat a team from Germany and the Russians overwhelmed a team from Portugal. The three countries join Austria as the four nations with two teams each in the main draw.

Canada’s other main draw team, 18th-seeded Nick Del Bianco/Garret May, opened the main draw with a win over seventh-seeded Parker Kalmbach/Brandon Fuimaono of the United States while Poland’s fifth-seeded Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak beat Portugal’s 20th-seeded Simao Teixeira/Joao Lemos and Russia’s third-seeded Andrey Bolgov/Ruslan Bykanov were victorious over Austria’s 21st-seeded Christoph Dressler/Lorenz Petutschnig who had advanced from Wednesday’s qualifier. Poland’s Kantor/Losiak finished in fifth place in this tournament last year when it was held in Alanya, Turkey, where this year’s 2010 SWATCH FIVB Junior World Championships, for players under 21 years old, will be held in September.

As the host country, Portugal has three men’s and three women’s teams each pre-seeded into the main draw of their respective tournaments. The men’s teams representing the host nation are Joao Lemos/Simao Teixeira, Sebastiao Alves/Fernando Silva and Oscar Barbosa/Hugo Lima.

While Lemos/Teixeira (No. 20 seed) and Barbosa/Lima (No. 1 seed) lost their opening matches to teams from Poland and Russia respectively, sixth-seeded Alves/Silva came from behind to defeat 19th-seeded Petr Doubravsky/Pavel Matejka, 16-21, 21-19 and 15-12 in a 55-minute match, the longest of the 12 men’s matches played Thursday.

Responding in unison following their home-country win, Portugal’s Alves and Silva commented, “We knew we had a shot against the Czech team and we worked very hard as this was our first international victory. We have experience in indoor volleyball, but Beach Volleyball is in many ways much different and extremely difficult. No one appointed us as favourites, but we are fighting to get there.”

The other men’s teams winning their opening matches on Thursday were Austria’s Lorenz Koraimann/Simon Schorghofer (No. 13 seed), France’s Hugo Alimi/Tom Riblet (No. 17), New Zealand’s Paora Morunga/Morgan Seymour (No. 14), Norway’s Jonas Kvalen/Lars Tvinde (No. 1) and Ukraine’s Artem KKobernyk/Pavlo Remezov (No. 9).

The 2010 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships features live video streaming for the first time through the efforts of the Portuguese Volleyball Federation. The direct link for all matches on the featured court during the event is www.fpvoleibol.pt/video.htm. Event info, including schedules, results and photo galleries, will be available at www.fpvoleibol.pt. Complete and detailed event information is also available at www.fivb.org.

This year’s international event is being produced by the Portuguese Volleyball Federation under the direction of PVF President Vicente Araújo and tournament director Teaodemiro Carvalho.  The PVF has produced 13 SWATCH FIVB World Tour events in Espinho, Portugal and this is the first time the organization has staged an international world championship event and first time in Porto, the second-largest city in Portugal.

The two semi-finals, bronze and gold medal matches for each gender will be televised live on Sport TV in Portugal. An IMG television crew is also on-site to produce special segments from both genders to air internationally on the SWATCH FIVB World Tour highlight shows to air later this summer and fall.