Vienna, Austria, July 31, 2017 - Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt, the only team to win the “triple crown” of beach volleyball, will play their first center court match at the 2017 FIVB World Championships presented by A1 here Monday when the Brazilians meet a Latvian pair in the 10,000-seat Red Bull Beach Arena.
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The "triple crown" of beach volleyball is achieved by winning the sport’s three most prestigious events. Alison and Bruno accomplished the feat by winning the gold medals at the 2015 World Championships in the Netherlands, the 2015 Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals in the United States on Fort Lauderdale Beach and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games last August on Copacabana.
The fifth-seeded Brazilians will play the next-to-last match on center court Monday at 6 p.m. (local time) when Alison and Bruno are challenged by 29th-seeded Martins Plavins/Haralds Regza of Latvia. Plavins also ranks among beach volleyball’s elite after winning the bronze medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games with Janis Smedins, who celebrated his 30th birthday Sunday with a Vienna win with current partner Aleksandrs Samoilovs.
Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai, who dropped the Rio Olympic gold medal match to Alison and Bruno, will also be in action Monday with a 3 p.m. side court match against 35th-seeded Christopher McHugh and Damien Schumann of Australia. Both teams won their opening match Saturday over teams from Russia and Sierra Leone. The Italians have played the Aussies once of the FIVB World Tour with McHugh and Schumann winning a three-set elimination match over Lupo and Nicolai at the Moscow Open June 2.
The $1-million FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by A1 will feature 28 pool play matches on three courts Monday at the state-of-the art venue at Donauinsel with the focal point of the action and entertainment being held with a picturesque view of the Danube River and the lively atmosphere of the Beach Village.
A total of 216-matches will be played 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 August 5 and the men’s August 6. 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.