Sanya, China, October 30, 2009 - China's Penggen Wu/Linyin Xu and Reindeer Nummerdor/Richard Schuil of The Netherlands won semi-final matches here Friday afternoon over teams from Russia and Spain, respectively to enter the men's finals at the US$380,000 Sanya Open presented by Olympic Bay..

Wu and Xu will be trying for China's first-ever men's gold medal. Nummerdor and Schuil will be trying to win their third SWATCH title after winning the last two finales in Finland and the Netherlands.

The ninth-seeded Wu and Xu had an easier route to their sixth SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal match together by playing only one match Friday while the top-seeded Nummerdor and Schuil had to win two elimination matches over Beach Volleyball pairs from Germany and Norway to secure their spot in their ninth international finale.

Saturday afternoon's meeting will be the second gold medal match between the two teams as Nummerdor and Schuil defeated the Chinese 17-21, 21-17 and 15-11 in the May 2008 SWATCH FIVB World Tour title meeting in Zagreb, Croatia. Overall, Wu and Xu have won six of the nine international meetings with the Dutch with their last meeting being a Chinese victory at the 2008 Berlin Grand Slam in the German capital.

Competing in their first SWATCH FIVB World Tour event together since the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Wu and Xu gained a spot in the Sanya Open finale with a 21-12 and 21-19 win in 38 minutes over 16th-seeded Yury Bogatov and Serguei Prokopiev of Russia.

With two elimination wins like Nummerdor and Schuil Friday, Bogatov and Prokopiev became only the third Russian men's team to advance to a SWATCH FIVB World Tour semi-final in the 23-year history of the international circuit that began in 1987 in Rio de Janeiro. After defeating the 14th-seeded Ingrosso twins (Matteo and Paolo) 21-17 and 21-18 in 47 minutes, Bogatov and Prokopiev denied China a second "final four" team by eliminating 27th-seeded Peng Gao and Jian Li of China 21-19 and 23-21 in 47 minutes.

To advance to the semi-finals against second-seeded Adrian Gavira Collado and Pablo Herrera of Spain, Nummerdor and Schuil had to first eliminate 13th-seeded Sebastian Dollinger/Stefan Windscheif of Germany (21-17, 16-21 and 15-10, 55 minutes) and fourth-seeded Tarjei Skarlund/Martin Spinnangr of Norway (21-14, 17-9 retired, 31).

Playing Gavira and Herrera for the seventh-time this season on the SWATCH FIVB World Tour, Nummerdor and Schuil claimed their fourth victory over the Spaniards with a 21-16 and 21-18 win in 38 minutes. The two teams played each other in The Hague SWATCH finale at the end of August before meeting three wins later in Russia in the European championships with the Dutch winning the gold medal.