An Open Russian beach-volley Cup kicks-off in Anapa

Tomorrow the last tournament in the Russian beach-volley calendar-2010 - Open Cup of Russia and Eastern European Volleyball Zonal Association, will start at the sport-complex "Volley Grad', located in the south sity of Anapa. This year, the tournament will take place not only under the auspices of the Russian Volleyball Federation, but also by the East European Volleyball Zonal Association (EEVZA). In late July the first ever Junior EEVZA Championship was held in Kaliningrad. Thus, the format of the Russian Cup has received international status.

An entry of the tournament looks very interesting. In men's division, first of all, it is worth to note the reunification of most titled couple in the history of Russian beach volleyball - Dmitry Barsouk and Igor Kolodinsky will play together again. This season, the guys have played only a few tournaments of the World Tour, during one of which (Rome) Dmitry Barsouk has seriously injured his shoulder. Recovery has taken more than three months, but Dmitry is back on the sand and shows a good level of beach volleyball. Confirmation of this is the gold medal of Russian National tour Final, which was held in "Volley Grad" at the end of last week. The teammate of Barsouk during the Final -  Alexander Samoilov - will perform together with his compatriot - Latvian Martins Plavins, which won the silver medal of the World Tour stop in Marseille, as well as the European Championship Finals bronze medal in Berlin. Coaches of Anapa club "Volley Grad" decided for the first time this year to break duos Sergey Prokopiev - Yury Bogatov and Konstantin Semenov - Alexey Pastukhov. Sergey will play at the Cup with Konstantin, and Alexey with Yury.

In women's competition representatives of VC "Obninsk" Ekaterina Khomyakova and Anna Vozakova will try to arrange a golden double in Anapa. Last Saturday, they won the Final of Russian National tour here in Anapa, now it's the Cup. However, it will be very difficult for Ekaterina and Anna to achieve a second consecutive success, because the level of their opponents is very high. The gold medalists of European Champioships Final-2009 Inguna Minusa and Inese Jursone from Latvia has also come to Anapa. Russian land is happy for these girls, because the CEV ECF two years ago was held in Sochi. There are changes in the two strongest pairs of Moscow region's club - Galina Boyko in this tournament will perform together with Svetlana Popova, and Ekaterina Raevskaya - with Olga Motrich. In total, besides Russia, athletes from four countries will participate at the Open Russian Cup - Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

The main draw of male and female tournaments will be attended by 16 teams, which will be divided into four groups of four couples in each. The first group matches will be played on Friday, the tournament will end on Sunday with semifinal and final matches.