Shanghai, China, May 1, 2009 - Both Harley Marques and Pedro Salgado are looking for a three-peat in the men's Beach Volleyball competition this week at the US$380,000 China Shanghai Jinshan Open, but only one can achieve the gold medal milestone as the Brazilians are playing with different partners this season.

After winning gold medals at the past two China Shanghai Jinshan Opens, Harley and Salgado joined FIVB President Jizhong Wei as the featured individuals here Friday on the event schedule. With more than 4,000 fans filling the centre court President Wei spoke to a capacity crowd during the opening ceremonies for the sixth annual event.

With Alison Cerutti and Pedro Cunha playing with Harley and Salgado, respectively, the two teams went in different directions after playing three matches each Friday at the Beach Volley Venue in the Jinshan District of Shanghai as teams from China, Estonia and Germany joined one of the Brazilian pairs as unbeaten tandems heading the SWATCH FIVB World Tour field into Saturday's action.

Seeded first in the Main Draw at the second of 13 double gender events on the 2009 SWATCH FIVB World Tour calendar, Alison and Harley remained unbeaten after scoring wins over teams from Russia, Venezuela and Brazil to advance to a Saturday meeting in the quarter-finals of the winner's bracket against fifth-seeded Jialu Li and Linyin Xu of China.

Alison and Harley advanced unbeaten to Saturday's play by defeating ninth-seeded compatriots Benjamin Insfran and Hevaldo Moreira 21-12 and 21-16 in 38 minutes before Li and Xu scored a 21-18 and 21-19 win in 40 minutes over 20th-seeded qualifiers Michal Biza and Pavel Rotrekl of the Czech Republic.

The second-seeded Cunha and Salgado dropped their third match Friday by losing 19-21, 21-14 and 15-11 in 49 minutes to 10th-seeded Kristjan Kais and Rivo Vesik as the Estonians will now play third-seeded Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann. The Germans advanced unbeaten with a 21-12 and 21-12 victory in 37 minutes over sixth-seeded Dmitri Barsouk and Igor Kolodinsky of Russia.

While Harley needs only one more victory to reach the China Shanghai Jinshan Open semi-final and three more wins to capture the gold medal with Alison, Salgado must win five-straight matches with Cunha to win Shanghai gold again, including three elimination matches Saturday.

Twelve other teams remain in the double-elimination competition with one defeat each as Saturday's schedule will feature four elimination rounds along with the quarter-finals of the winner's bracket to set the schedule for Sunday's "final four" matches.

Marcio Araujo and Fabio Magalhaes, the silver medal winners at the Beijing 2008 Olympics after edging Harley and Salgado for the second Brazilian berth in the Summer Games, won two of three matches Friday to remain in the competition as the South Americans were upset by Biza and Rotrekl.

Sunday's men's finalists will compete for the $30,000 first-place prize as the women's semi-finals and medal matches will be played Saturday as host country has one team vying for the gold medal. Jie Wang, the silver medal winner with Jia Tian in Beijing for China, remains in the competition with Man Zuo.

Following the China Shanghai Jinshan Open, the men's SWATCH FIVB World Tour will stage events in Italy (Rome, May 12-17) and Poland (Myslowice, May 26-31) before the 2009 SWATCH FIVB World Championships presented by ConocoPhillips. The $1-million event will be played June 25-July 5 in Stavanger, Norway.