Beijing, China, August 14, 2008 - Only three of the six top-ranked men’s teams at beach volleyball tournament of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games were able to advance from pool play with unbeaten records as two more seed-break-throughs were posted here Thursday at the 12,200-seat Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground.

With 23rd-seeded Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs winning Pool B based on their upset of second-seeded Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers of the United States Saturday, the teams of seventh-seeded Jake Gibb/Sean Rosenthal of the United States (Pool F) and 16th-seeded Clemens Doppler/Peter Gartmayer of Austria (Pool D) finished atop their groups Thursday.

The last two preliminary phase matches were played late Thursday for teams from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland as the two “Lucky Loser” confrontations will set the field for the 16-team single-elimination bracket to be played Saturday at the Chaoyang Park.

Following the “Lucky Loser” matches, the pairings for the “opening” single-elimination round were announced. The men’s quarter-finals will be held Monday followed by the semi-finals Wednesday and the medal matches August 21.

Eleventh-seeded Sascha Heyer/Patrick Heuscher of Switzerland lost to 24th-seeded Florian Gosch/Alexander Horst of Austria 21-11 and 21-19 and eighth-seeded David Klemperer/Eric Koreng of Germany defeated 18th-seeded Emiel Boersma/Bram Ronnes of the Netherlands 21-16 and 27-25. The Germans will play top-seeded Penggen Wu/Linyin Xu of China Saturday while the Latvians meet Gosch and Horst. Wu and Xu also won Pool A Thursday with a 3-0 mark.

Although Plavins and Samoilovs finished with a 2-1 pool mark while the other two teams were 3-0 in their groups, the Latvians broke their tie with Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers by defeating the Americans 21-19 and 21-18 last Saturday at Chaoyang Park.

Doppler, who missed the Athens 2004 Olympic Games due to a knee injury, and Gartmayer completed their successful pool slate by defeating 21st-seeded Eugenio Amore and Riccardo Lione of Italy 21-19 and 24-22 in 43 minutes Friday. Earlier in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games competition, Doppler and Gartmayer posted wins over the fourth- and ninth-seeded teams.

Gibb and Rosenthal ended their run to the top spot in their group with a 21-15, 19-21 and 18-16 win in 57 minutes over 19th-seeded Kentaro Asahi and Katsuhiro Shiratori, who missed a chance to tie the Americans in the pool. Gibb and Rosenthal gained the pool leadership with a 21-15 and 21-13 win Tuesday over sixth-seeded Julius Brink and Christoph Dieckmann of Germany, who finished fourth in the pool to place 19th.

Also winning pools Wednesday with the Latvians were third-seeded Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos of Brazil (Pool C), and fifth-seeded Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil of the Netherlands (Pool E). Emanuel and Ricardo are the defending Olympic champions after defeating Spain’s Javier Bosma and Pablo Herrera for the 2004 Summer Games gold medal.