Eight Teams Advance to Langkawi Open Main Draw

          32 TEAMS BATTLE IT OUT IN INTENSE QUALIFICATION MATCHES

          The opening day of the Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Beach Volleyball World Tour -- Langkawi Open 2018, organised by E-Plus Global Sdn Bhd, got underway on Thursday. The single elimination qualification games were held to determine the best four teams from each of the men and women's categories that will advance into Friday's main draw and first pool phase of the tournament.

          With wins in their matches today, the four teams that will progress to the men's main draw are: Max-Jonas Karpa/Milan Sievers(Germany), Paul Becker/Eric Stadie(Germany), Simon Fruhbauer/Jorg Wutzl(Austria) and Petr Bakhnar/Taras Myskiv(Russia).

          Amongst the first to progress was the German pair of Karpa/Sievers, who commented, "We did it and made it to the main draw! Hopefully we are able to play as well as we did today tomorrow and we will see how far we can go as there are a lot of good teams."

          Also making it through the qualifiers Russians Bakhnar/Myskiv noted, "It's unbelievable as it was a crazy and tough game. We are so happy to make it to the main draw. We would like to thank everyone who came to support us today!"

          Progressing to the women's main draw were Brittany Kendall/Stefanie Weller(Australia), Katja Stam/Julia Wouters(The Netherlands), Marta Ozolina/Agnese Caica(Latvia) and Chiyo Suzuki/Reika Murakami (Japan).

          Speaking of their advancement, the Dutch pair of Stam/Wouters comments, "It is so awesome as we have worked so hard for this, all winter long. That it is working is awesome." Looking forward to the main draw matches, they added, "for us, we just want to play our own game and play what we can, I think we can surprise a few people!"

          "What an awesome start to the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour -- Langkawi Open 2018! Well fought by all 32 teams who had to battle it out in the single elimination qualifications, demonstrating what we can expect the competition will be like over the next few days! Congratulations to the eight teams from the men's and women's categories for making it into the main draw tomorrow," comments Andrew Ching, Chief Executive Office of E-Plus Global Sdn Bhd.

          Friday will see the start of the primary competition with the group phase to determine positions in the round of 12 and quarterfinals on Saturday.