Vienna, Austria, August 4, 2017 - With a new women’s world champions to be crowned, pairs from Brazil, Canada, Germany and the United States will compete Friday afternoon in the semifinals of the 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by A1.
The first semifinal will be a rematch of the Rio 2016 Olympic semifinal as top-seeded Talita Antunes and Larissa Franca of Brazil meet fourth-seeded Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst of Germany. The Germans lead the FIVB World Tour series between the two teams at 5-1, including a two-set win last August on Copacabana for Talita and Larissa.
The second semifinal pits two North American pairs as seventh-seeded Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan of Canada against 14th-seeded Lauren Fendrick and April Ross of the United States. It will be the second FIVB meeting between the two teams with Humana-Paredes and Pavan defeating the Americans in two sets at a Polish World Tour event on July 27.
The $1-million FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by A1 will feature six matches (four men and two women) Saturday at the state-of-the art venue at Donauinsel in Vienna.
A total of 216-matches will be contested over a 10-day period at the World Championships where the winning men’s and women’s teams will each split the $60,000 first-place prizes. The women’s medal matches will be played on Saturday and the men’s on Sunday. With 96 teams from 40 countries in the competition, pool play highlights the first six days of play with the featured court being the 10,000-seat Red Bull Beach Arena.