Klagenfurt, Austria, July 30, 2010 - Five of the top eight-seeded teams captured pools as expected here Friday at the US$600,000 A1 Beach Volleyball Grand Slam presented by Volksbank, but it was the play of teams from the Czech Republic, Latvia and Switzerland that were unbeaten in their groups to earn “byes” for the elimination rounds of the SWATCH FIVB World Tour.

Posting seed-break-throughs by winning their groups Friday were 21st-seeded Petr Benes/Premysl Kubala of the Czech Republic (Pool N), 23rd-seeded Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Ruslans Sorokins of Latvia (Pool P) and 25th-seeded Jefferson Bellaguarda/Martin Laciga of Switzerland (Pool Q)..

Joining Dalhausser and Rogers (Pool J) as top-ranked pairs winning their groups were two Brazilian pairs along with second-seeded Penggen Wu/Linyin Xu of China (Pool K) and Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel of Poland (Pool 0). The Brazilian group winners were third-seeded Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego (Pool L) and fourth-seeded Pedro Cunha/Thiago Santos Barbosa of Brazil (Pool M).

Recovering from pool setbacks to win opening elimination matches Friday were fifth-seeded Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera of Spain and seventh-seeded Marcio Araujo/Ricardo Santos of Brazil. While Samoilovs and Sorokins upset Marcio Araujo and Ricardo in pool play, Benes and Kubala were surprising Gavira and Herrera. Gavira and Herrera will play Samoilovs and Sorokins in an opening match Saturday with the winner playing either Dalhausser/Rogers or 15th-seeded Reinder Nummerdor/Richard Schuil of the Netherlands.