With Wild Card entries, four teams will represent USAV at World Tour Finals

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Wild Card selections have been made by the FIVB for the 2017 World Tour Finals, and the U.S. has earned two more teams into the season-ending beach volleyball tournament.

Selected for Wild Cards were April Ross/Lauren Fendrick and Casey Patterson/Theo Brunner. They join Brooke Sweat/Summer Ross and Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena at the Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals, which will be held in Hamburg, Germany from Aug. 23-27.

A total of four Wild Cards per gender were announced by the FIVB on Aug. 11, which now gives the USA the maximum two teams per gender at the tournament.

Dalhausser/Lucena and Sweat/S. Ross earned their berths into the competition on Wednesday via World Rankings.

The complete men’s field is now:
Alexander Horst/Clemens Doppler, AUT
Alvaro Filho/Saymon Santos, BRA
Evandro Goncalves/Andre Loyola, BRA
Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk, CAN Wild Card
Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira, ESP
Markus Bockermann/Lorenz Schumann, GER Wild Card
Armin Dollinger/Jonathan Erdmann, GER Wild Card
Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo, ITA
Bartosz Losiak/Piotr Kantor, POL
Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Nikita Liamin, RUS
Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena, USA
Casey Patterson/Theo Brunner, USA Wild Card

The complete women’s field is now:
Agatha Bednarczuk/Eduarda Lisboa, BRA
Larissa Franca/Talita Antunes, BRA
Sarah Pavan/Melissa Humana-Paredes, CAN
Heather Bansley/Brandie Wilkerson, CAN Wild Card
Barbora Hermannova/Marketa Slukova, CZE
Kristyna Kolocova/Michala Kvapilova, CZE
Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst, GER Wild Card
Julia Sude/Chantal Laboureur, GER
Joana Heidrich/Anouk Verge-Depre, SUI
Nina Betschart/Tanja Huberli, SUI Wild Card
Brooke Sweat/Summer Ross, USA
April Ross/Lauren Fendrick, USA Wild Card

Tournament Format
Twelve teams per gender, with pool play broken into pools of three starting on Aug. 23. All teams advance into the single-elimination bracket. Quarterfinals and semifinals for the women will be Aug. 25, with the finals on Saturday Aug. 26. The men will play quarterfinals on the 26th, semifinals and finals on the 27th.

USA at the World Tour Finals
In 2016, the U.S. saw John Hyden/Tri Bourne earn bronze at the World Tour Finals, Dalhausser/Lucena and Kerri Walsh Jennings/A. Ross tied for fifth, respectively. In 2015, the inaugural year of the World Tour Finals, USA entered two men’s and women’s teams. Dalhausser/Lucena earned silver, Fendrick/A. Ross tied for fifth, Jennifer Kessy/Emily Day finished seventh, and Jake Gibb/Patterson in seventh.