Eight spots clinched for SWATCH FIVB World Tour men's main draw

(BEIJING, June 19) -- In men's SWATCH FIVB World Tour qualifier played on six sand courts at the Champs de Mars this Wednesday, a total of eight tandems earned spots in Thursday's Main Draw for the fourth Henkel Grand Chelem, as reported by the FIVB website.

Three teams with previous Olympic experience from Argentina, Norway and Portugal failed to advance from the Henkel Grand Chelem qualifier. Joao Brenha and Miguel Maia, the Portuguese pair finishing fourth, fourth and ninth in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games, this time lost the first-round match of two sets to 21st-seeded Yaroslav Koshkarev and Serguei Prokopiev of Russia.

After beating their Portuguese rivals, the Russians went on with their victory in the second match Wednesday, advancing to the Henkel Grand Chelem along with second-seeded Patrick Heuscher/Sascha Heyer of Switzerland, sixth-seeded Jian Li/Shun Zhou of China, seventh-seeded Ahren Cadieux/Mark Heese of Canada, eighth-seeded Martins Plavins/Aleksandrs Samoilovs of Latvia, 13th-seeded Stein Metzger/Mark Williams of United States, 14th-seeded Eugenio Amore/Riccardo Bizzotto of Italy and 17th-seeded Adrian Gavira Collado/Inocencio Lario of Spain.