So far through 2 days of men’s competition at the 2017 FIVB World Championships in Vienna, Austria, the favorites have remained largely unscathed.
The top seeds in each of the 12 men’s pools so far are undefeated, and in fact only one top-12 pair has even lost a set. That pair is #3 seeds Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena, who dropped a set to countrymates Ryan Doherty and John Hyden before eventually taking a crucial 2-1 win. Ultimately, though, the Pool C outcome will still probably come down to their matchup against Prudel/Kujawiak on August 2nd.
There have been a few upsets in the lower seeds, however, that will shake up the 32-team elimination bracket field. #14 seeds Stoyanovskiy/Yarzutkin lost to 35th-seeded Australians McHugh/Schumann. That outcome was a 2-0 sweep, which means that barring a big upset of their own over group leaders Nicolai/Lupo of Italy, the Russians are probably headed to the lucky losers bracket that will require them winning an extra match to make the field of 32.
All-in-all, though, the men’s tournament so far has gone almost entirely to chalk, especially as compared to the more upended women’s bracket.
While the Austrian fans have showed up en force through 2 days, and they were rewarded on the tournament’s first day when Doppler/Horst beat Raoufi R./Salemi B. for the lone Austrian men’s victory so far.
Teams play each other team in their pool once, and the two teams in each of the 12 pools advance automatically to the round of 32 elimination stage. The four best 3rd-place teams (as determined by the heirarchy below) also get a free pass to the round of 32. The other eight 3rd-place teams play in “lucky losers” matches, the winners of which also join the 32-team bracket.
Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com.
Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder.
Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …
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