Grand Canary, April 17, 2008: Anyone who already has a spot in the main draw of the Spanish Masters of the NESTEA European Championship Tour is a happy camper.
He or she will calmly be watching the teams in the 52 matches of the qualification rounds and studying his potential opponents. Patrick Heuscher (Switzerland) was one of the numerous spectators who watched the games on the four courts on Playa del Ingles. It was a very laid-back phase for Heuscher while many of his opponents were already heavily sweating on the job. “It feels pretty good to be relaxing a bit more", Heuscher said, “because the Spanish Masters will be tough enough anyway with this high-class starters field."
And so Heuscher, who will be playing in the main draw with his partner Sascha Heyer on Friday, saw how some favored teams not only struggled, but did not survive the 32-team men's and women's Qualification Round. Like Heuscher's compatriot and three-time European Champion Martin Laciga who was eliminated with his partner Jan Schnider by the Spanish local heroes Adrian Gavira and Inocencio Lario in three sets (19:12, 21:14, 15:17). “In this tough qualification five poor minutes are enough to lose the match", David Klemperer (Germany) said, the leader of the European ranking list with partner Eric Koreng.
The following teams survived the Qualification Rounds:
Women: Schwaiger/Schwaiger (AUT), Koutroumanidou/Tsiartsiani (GRE), Goller/Ludwig (GRE), Kuhn/Schwer (SUI).
Men: Matysik/Uhmann (GER), Lione/Varnier (ITA), Ces/Ces (FRA).
Because of the tight entry list, not all of the qualification matches could be proceeded on Thursday. The remaining match of the third round will be played on Friday morning: Goranson/Hoidalen (Norway) will play against Kadziola/Szalankiewicz (Poland).
Schedule:
Friday, April 18: Main Draw Men/Women
Saturday, April 19: Main Draw Men/Women; in the afternoon Semifinals Men/Women
Sunday, April 20: Finals Women (11 am) and Men (1 pm)
Beach Volleyball fans can enjoy a new broadcasting service starting this weekend. LAOLOA1.tv - the sport TV on the web - will be showing images of the NESTEA European Championship Tour as a free video live stream at
www.laola1.tv. The 100,000 € Spanish Masters on Grand Canary is the kick-off event for the novel service. LAOLA1.tv will be showing the men's and women's semi-final and finals matches live from the Playa del Ingles. Additional matches beginning with the preliminary rounds of the Spanish Masters can be seen live on
www.bwin.com.