Two Canadian teams advance to main draw at beach volleyball World Tour

 PRAGUE – (May 23, 2012)Josh Binstock of Toronto and Martin Reader of Comox, B.C., as well as Christian Redmann of Toronto and Ben Saxton of Calgary advanced on Wednesday to the main draw at a stop on FIVB World Tour in beach volleyball.

Both teams are looking to be the top-two Canadian pairs on the Tour by mid-June so they can compete at the Continental Cup Olympic qualifier.

Binstock and Reader won three matches in qualifying.  They defeated two Italian pairs including Andrea Tomatis and Matteo Martino, 21-14, 21-14 in the second round as well as Dawid Popek and Michal Makowski of Poland 21-18, 22-20 in the third to grab one of the eight available spots for the main draw.  The Polish pair had earlier defeated the top-seeded pair in qualifying.

‘’Our first match was shaky but we still battled through,’’ said Binstock.  ‘’That carried momentum for the next two matches.  We knew the Polish team would be good and we didn’t take them lightly.  For the main draw, we know we have it in us to get a top-10 result.’’

Redmann and Saxton advanced to the main draw for the first time this season with wins over Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak of Poland 21-19, 18-21, 15-10 and Alexey Kuleshov and Dmitriy Yakovlev of Kazakhstan 21-10, 21-17.

‘’Our first opponent was atop-ranked junior team and they played well,’’ said Redmann.  ‘’We had to grind it out and we capitalized on a couple of their mistakes at the end of the third set.  We came out strong and we kept on their right side player who appeared pretty tired.’’

Redmann and Sexton had a first round bye.

Sam Schachter of Toronto and Maverick Hatch of Comox were eliminated in the second round and Richard Van Huizen of Toronto and Garrett May of London, Ont., were ousted in the first round.

Main draw action starts Thursday.

More information:www.fivb.org