Olympic beach volleyball: powerhouses secure top 16 places

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LONDON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's top-seeded Larissa Franca/Juliana Felisberta Da Silva had a second straight win on Monday to secure a top 16 berth at the women's beach volleyball of London Olympics.

The Brazil duo overpowered Germany's 12th-seeded Katrin Holtwick and Ilka Semmler 21-18, 21-13 in 42 minutes to push the Germans to 1-1 in pool play.

Juliana had one ace, nine kills, two blocks and six digs and Larissa was credited with one ace, 14 kills and 21 digs. For Germany, Holtwick had two aces, 10 kills and 13 digs while Semmler had 10 kills, three blocks and four digs.

Double Olympic Champion Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh from the United States also book a place in the knockout stage with a 21-14, 21-19 victory over Marketa Slukova/Kristyna Kolocova of Czech Republic in the very last match on Monday.

Early on the day, Beijing Olympic bronze medallists Xue Chen/Zhang Xi hammerd Simone Kuhn/Nadine Zumkehr of Switzerland in three sets to gain their first win.

Coming off a shocking 1-2 loss to Russians Anastasia Vasina/Anna Vozakova in the opener on Saturday, the Chinese duo, second seed of the tournament, clawed back their hope to advance into the last 16 with a 21-19, 16-21 and 15-8 victory.

Zhang Xi scored five of China's last six points to help them remaining in the competition with three points in hand.

On men's side, Germany's third-seeded Julius Brink/Jonas Reckermann, the 2009 FIVB World Champions who have missed much of this season with Reckermann's shoulder injury, overcame a slow start and wore down China's 10th-seeded Wu Penggen and Xu Linyin 13-21, 21-19 and 15-8 in a 52-minute match. While Germany's Brink/Reckermann is 2-0 to enter the kockout stage, China's Wu/Xu have slipped to 0-2.

Latvia's Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Ruslans Sorokins also secured a place in the knockout stages by defeating South African pair Grant Goldschmidt and Freedom Chiya 21-13, 21-10 early on Monday.

The tandems in London have been split equally into six pools, with the top two advancing to the knockout phase that begins on August 3 along with the two best third-placed teams. The remaining four third-place teams will then compete in lucky loser playoff matches to determine which pairs will fill the final two places. Enditem

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