The US$600,000 Vienna Major is the third elite beach volleyball event in the Austrian capital after the World Championships in 2017 and last year’s Major event. On top of the $40,000 first-place prize purse, the Vienna gold medalists will earn 1,200 Olympic qualifying points for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Qualification starts Tuesday with several top teams being involved. On the men’s side, 2013 world champions and Gstaad finalists Brouwer/Meeuwsen as well as Latvian top team Samoilovs/ Smedins need to go through the qualification tournament. Main draw rounds will start on Wednesday for the women and on Thursday for the men. The knock-out rounds will be played from Friday leading to the women’s final on Saturday and the men’s medal matches on Sunday.
Defending champions are Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sorum who just claimed gold at the Tokyo 4-star event last weekend. Their strongest opposition might be the new world champions Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov from Russia. On the women’s side, Czech beach girls Barbora Hermannova and Marketa Slukova will try to defend their 2018 title .
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