Satun,Thailand, April 7, 2017- Qataris Julio Do Nascimento and Ahmed Tijan Jako have emerged as the tournament ‘s top seeds at the SMM AVC Beach Tour Est Cola 2nd Satun Pakbara Master, due to kick off their campaign against Anil and Adnan from Maldives on Saturday.

The participating countries at the four-day competition between April 8 and 11 consist of Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, New Zealand, Oman,Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Vanuatu, Vietnam,  and hosts Thailand.

The drawing of lots as well as the General Technical Meeting of the tournament took place on Friday, with all participating players, coaches and journalists attending. Technical Delegate Mr Kritsada Panaseri presided and jointly conducted the drawing of lots with Referee Delegate Satomi Mariko from Japan.

“AVC have now set up some standards for helping the organisers and players. This year we have the qualification round prior to the main draw. For the tournaments ever held in Thailand so far, we always have many participating teams. Some teams had to play three times or four times a day which made them too exhausted. This year we have only 24 teams in the men’s main draw and 23 teams in the women’s, so they will play only two matches a day” Kritsada said in his speech during the Technical Meeting.

The men’s competition features eight pools from Pool A to Pool H with three teams apiece contesting in the pool round-robin preliminaries, while in the women’s action, there are also three teams each from Pool A to Pool H, except in Pool H with Kazakhstan 1 and Thailand 2 fight it out in the pool.

According to the drawing of lots, Qatar1’s Julio /Ahmed Tijan are top seeds in Pool A together with Iran’s Rahman Raoufi /Bahman Salami Injehbor and Maldives1’s Ahmed Anil Nasser /Adbul Hameed Adnan.

Australia1’s Chris Mchugh /Damien Schumann are the second seeds in Pool B together with China2’s Zhuoxin Li /Chaowei Zhou and Japan2’s Masato Kurasaka /Yoshiumi Hasegawa.
Asked about his team’s chance, Ahmed Tijan said,”Our pool is not that tough because we are the top seeds in this tournament, but anyway we have to try our best in every game we play in order to win. Hopefully we will win here”.

The Incheon Asian Games gold medalists and the last year’s runners-up Alexander Dyachenko /Alexey Sidorenko of Kazakhstan1 are the third seeds in Pool C with Oman1’s Badar Al Subhi /Ahmed Al Housni and Hong Kong1’s Tsz Ho Kelvin Lau / Pui Lam Wong.

The men’s main draw competition kicks off at 9:40 am with top seeds Juilo /Ahmed Tijan taking on Anil /Adnan.Mchugh/Schumann play Kurasaka /Hasegawa and Soderenko/Dyachenko challenge Kelvin/Lam.

In the women’s contest, Thailand1’s Varapatsorn Radarong/Tanarattha Udomchavee are top seeds to join Japan2 and Sri Lanka1.

Australia1’s Louise Bawden /Taliqua Clancy are second seeds in Pool B with Vietnam 1 and Thailand 3 while in Pool C is composed of Australia2’s Phoebe Bell/Nicole Laird and Japan1 and Sri Lanka 2.

The women’s main draw starts at 8.00 am with local hopefuls Varapatsorn/Tanarattha playing Gnanasagari/Chathurika from Sri Lanka, Australians Bawden/Clancy taking on Sri Lankans Deepika/Kasuni and Kazakhs Mashkova/Samalikova challenging Rampaipruet/Khanittha from Thailand.

Only top two teams from each pool will advance to the single elimination round of the last 16 teams.

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