USA’s Crabb/Gibb, Austria’s Seidl/Wall Lead Vienna Men’s Qualifiers

A1 Vienna Beach Major

• Danube Island; Vienna, Austria
• Aug. 1-5, 2018
• A1 Beach App
• Streaming Video
• Qualification Schedule/Results
• Main Draw Schedule/Results
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Americans Taylor Crabb/Jake Gibb, Brazilians Ricardo Santos/Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes and homestanding Robin Seidl/Philipp Waller highlight the group of eight teams that are moving on from the qualifiers to the Vienna Major main draw.

Joining those two are:

• Esteban Grimalt/Marco Grimalt (Chile)
• Ahmed Tijan/Cherif Younousse (Qatar)
• Robin Seidl/Philipp Waller (Austria)
• Dries Koekelkoren/Tom Van Walle (Belgium)
• Grant O’Gorman/Ben Saxton (Canada)
• Adrian Heidrich/Mirco Gerson (Switzerland)

Three of the eight matches went the distance with Seidl/Waller rallying for a 15-21, 21-9, 16-14 win in front of a home crowd of more than 5,000 fans.

Koekelkoren/Van Walle also came back after dropping their opening set of Round 2, besting Turkey’s Murat Giginoglu/Volkan Gogtepe 13-21, 21-15, 15-8.

O’Gorman/Saxton held on for a 21-14, 18-21, 15-9 win over Argentina’s Nicolas Capogrosso/Julian Azaad.

Crabb/Gibb outlasted fellow Americans Bill Kolinske/Miles Evans 21-14, 21-16. Crabb/Gibb jumped out to a 7-2 lead in Set 1 including an ace by Crabb. Kolinske/Evans rallied to within three four times, last at 15-12, before Crabb/Gibb outscored them 6-2 down the stretch. In Set 2, Crabb/Gibb built a five point lead at 11-6 and Kolinske/Evans cut the margin to three at 15-12 on a Kolinske block. An Evans putaway stopped the first match-point try, but a service error capped the match at 21-16.

The men’s main draw action will begin on Thursday with pool play.

Fifth-seeded Americans Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena are in Pool A alongside Latvians Martins Plavins/Edgars Tocs.

John Hyden/Theo Brunner will play in Pool B with 2017 Vienna bronze medalists Viacheslav Krasilnikov/Nikita Liamin. 

Crabb/Gibb were dealt into Pool D with Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira.

Pool E features two Brazilian sides: Ricardo/Guto and Pedro Solberg/Bruno Schmidt alongside the Grimalt cousins, who won the Tokyo Three Star on Sunday, and fourth-seeded Dutch pair Alexander Bouwer/Robert Meeuwsen.

No. 2 Alison Cerutti/Andre Loyola Stein of Brazil and No. 3 Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak of Poland are grouped together in Pool F.

Top seeded Vitor Felipe/Evandro Goncalves Oliveira from Brazil are in Pool G, while 2017 Vienna runnerup Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst of Austria headline Pool H.