After a 3-0 start in pool play, Brazil's five-time Olympian Emanuel Rego, pictured, and Alison Cerutti are ready to begin the elimination rounds of the beach volleyball competition Saturday at the London 2012 Olympic Games

London, Great Britain, August 3, 2012 – Following a day of rest and training following the six intense days of pool play, the second half of the round of 16 men’s teams will be completed Saturday to finalize the field for the quarterfinal matches as the original field of 24 men’s teams is being reduced to eight Friday’s at the London 2012 Olympic Games beach volleyball competition at Horse Guards Parade in central London.

A total 24 men’s beach volleyball teams from 19 countries started playing in London last Saturday in the purpose-built, sold-out 15,000-seat stadium on the grounds of the iconic Horse Guards Parade as the majestic venue also includes a portion of adjacent St. James Park in historic central London.

Four sessions will be held Saturday with two matches in each (one per gender) for the first half of the round of 16 matches with the balance to be played on Saturday. The sessions are scheduled to start Friday and Saturday at 9 a.m., 1 p.m., 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Breaking down the schedule for the second half of the men’s round of 16 on Saturday, the first men’s match of the day at 10 a.m., during the  featuring Brazil’s 2011 FIVB SWATCH World Champions and 2011 FIVB SWATCH World Tour champs Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego playing against Germany’s Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik.

Familiar faces on the World Tour, Brazil’s Alison/Emanuel have a 7-4 margin over Germany’s Erdmann/Matysik in their all-time FIVB international series. This season on the FIVB SWATCH World Tour, the German’s have a 2-1 edge with wins in Beijing and Brasilia while the Brazilians won in the most recent meeting in Rome.

Based on the bracket for the single-elimination phase of the event, the winner of the Brazil vs. Germany match will face Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel who eliminated Switzerland’s Sebastian Chevallier/Sascha Heyer earlier on Friday.

In the early afternoon session, the men’s match at 2 p.m. will pit Netherlands’ Reinder Nummerdor/Richard Schuil against Switzerland’s Jefferson Bellaguarda/Patrick Heuscher in another World Tour matchup Nummerdor/Schuil won the only meeting with Bellaguarda/Heuscher in Stavanger, Norway last July.

The winner of the Netherlands’ against Switzerland match will meet Italy’s Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai who upset USA’s defending Olympic gold medalists Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers in two setsin front of a stunned capacity crowd.

The men’s match in the late afternoon session at Horse Guards Parade will be at 5 p.m. and pit Germany’s Julius Brink/Jonas Reckermann against Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Ruslans Sorokins. Germany’s Brink/Reckermann, 3-0 in London, have a 2-1 mark against Latvia’s Samoilovs/Sorokins, 2-1 so far here.

The winner of the Germany vs. Latvia‘s next match in the quarterfinals will be against Brazil’s Pedro Cunha/Ricardo Santos who eliminated Spain’s Adrian Gavira Collado/Pablo Herrera late Friday night.

In the men’s match in the night session, in the final match of the evening Saturday at 10 p.m. Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev/Konstantin Semenov will meet pool winner USA’s Jake Gibb/Sean Rosenthal. Saturday will be the first meeting between Russia’s Prokopyev/Semenov and USA’s Gibb/Rosenthal.

The winner of this match will move to the quarterfinals to face Latvia’s Martins Plavins/Janis Smedins who eliminated Norway’s Tarjei Skarlund/Martin Spinnangr on Friday.

The quarterfinal matches will be held for men on Monday, August 6 in two sessions with two quarters in each, the first starting at 6 p.m. and the second session for the final two quarterfinals starting at 10 p.m.

For current information on the event, visit www.fivb.org.

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