Dalhausser, Rogers in Grand Slam Semis

Becky Murdy
Assistant, Media Relations and Publications
Phone: 719-228-6800
E-Mail: becky.murdy@usav.org

FIVB Photo Gallery

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Aug. 6, 2011) - The U.S. men’s beach team of Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers are one step closer to their third straight FIVB Swatch World Tour A1 Grand Slam gold medal after a pair of wins on Saturday in Klagenfurt, Austria.

To advance into the FIVB Swatch World Tour A1 Grand Slam semifinals Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Fla.) and Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.) defeated Norway’s 21st-seeded team of Tarjei Skarlund and Martin Spinangr, 26-24, 21-11 in 42 minutes. The battle was settled in front of a packed crowd on center court.

“This is such a great tournament and we’re happy to keep playing on Sunday,” Rogers said in an FIVB release. “The crowd has so much fun and it makes all the teams want to play that much harder because they are enjoying it all so much.  Sunday has a tough final four with some new teams in it so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.”

Before advancing into round three, Rogers and Dalhausser outplayed Brazil’s fifth-seeded team of Marcio Henrique Barroso Araujo and Benjamin Insfran, 21-16, 21-17 in 43 minutes.

Rogers and Dalhausser will make their 37th final four appearance together in their 48th world tour event against Brazil’s newest pair, Pedro Henrique Cunha and Ricardo Alex Costa Santos on Sunday. Though separately the Brazilians have ample FIVB Swatch World Tour experience the A1 Grand Slam marks the pair's second tournament together.

Rogers and Dalhausser will battle in the semifinals in hopes of securing a gold-medal match position where they will fight for their third-straight and fourth-overall Klagenfurt A1 Grand Slam gold medal.

Both U.S. men’s teams of Matthew Fuerbringer (Costa Mesa, Calif.) with Nick Lucena (Santa Barbara, Calif.) and Casey Jennings (Las Vegas, Nev.) with Kevin Wong (Honolulu) started out the day with second-round wins before coming up just shy in the third round.

Fuerbringer and Lucena downed Sweden’s 25th-seeds Sascha Heyer and Sebastian Chevallier, 21-16, 21-16 in 39 minutes before falling to Germany’s third-seeded team of Brink and Reckermann, 21-17, 21-19 in 44 minutes. The Americans exited the tournament with a 6-2 record as the tournament’s 15th-seeds.

Jennings and Wong, the U.S. dark horses in the tournament, fought through two qualifications matches, pool play and first and second round matches of competition to down Kazakhstan’s 26th Dyachenko Sidorenko, 19-21, 21-15, 15-12 in 52 minutes in Saturday’s second round. The Americans advanced to the third round where the 14th-seeded match up with Brazil’s Bruno and Maciel proved too much as they fell, 21-19, 21-15 in 39 minutes.  

Both the semifinal round and gold and bronze-medal matches will take place Sunday in the men’s event.

The FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Tour will take a week off for the 24-team women’s only Olympic test event in London before Europe hosts the final two double-gender open events in Finland from August 15-21 and The Hague, Netherlands from August 23-28. 

For more information about the tournament and the FIVB, click here.

Tags: 2011 FIVB World Tour, 2011 SWATCH World Tour, Beach, Beach Volleyball, mobile, Philip Dalhausser, Todd Rogers