Mariehamn, Finland, August 19, 2010 - It was "business as usual"  for six of the eight top-seeded men's pairs at the US$380,000 PAF Open here Thursday as teams from Brazil, China, France, Latvia, Russia, Spain and the United States posted "perfect" Main Draw marks on a day where ideal weather conditions greeted the best Beach Volleyball players in the world.

After Wednesday's qualifying for 41 teams was played under dark skies with rainy conditions, Thursday's 32 matches for men and 16 confrontations for women were staged under sunny skies without any severe weather conditions on the Hotel Arkipelag courts. The 11th of 12 double gender events on the SWATCH FIVB World Tour calendar continues through the weekend.

Posting the two break-throughs Thursday were the 18th-seeded Ces brothers (Andy and Kevin) of France and 26th-seeded was Alexey Pastukhov and Konstantin Semenov of Russia as both teams each posted two upset wins Thursday during the opening Main Draw rounds of the third annual PAF Open.

The two teams will meet Friday afternoon with the winner guaranteed a fifth-place in the PAF Open with the loser finishing ninth or higher. Both the French and Russians have not finished higher than 13th or 17th, respectively, this season.

The Ces brothers opened play Thursday with a 21-19 and 25-23 win in 50 minutes over 15th-seeded Jason Lochhead and Kirk Pitman of New Zealand before defeating second-seeded Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann of Germany 21-18 and 21-16. While the Ces have a 4-2 match mark against the Kiwis, the French brothers were defeating the Germans for the first-time.

After winning two qualifying matches Wednesday, Pastukhov and Semenov began play Thursday with a 21-19, 16-21 and 15-11 win in 59 minutes over seventh-seeded Emiel Boersma and Daan Spijkers of The Netherlands before defeating 23rd-seeded Christian Redmann and Rich VanHuizen of Canada 21-11, 18-21 and 15-10 in 46 minutes.

Like the Russians, both the Dutch and Canadians competed in Wednesday's qualifier as Redmann and VanHuizen advanced via a "lucky loser" draw when the American team of Matt Fuerbringer and Nick Lucena withdrew late from the PAF Open due to injuries.

In other winner's bracket matches Friday, top-seeded Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers of the United States plays eighth-seeded Benjamin Insfran and Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil, fourth-seeded Penggen Wu and Linyin Xu of China faces fifth-seeded Adrian Gavira and Pablo Herrera of Spain and third-seeded Marcio Araujo and Ricardo Santos of Brazil meets sixth-seeded Martin Plavins and Janis Smedins of Latvia.

Except for the Russians, the other seven teams competing in the winner's bracket Friday have placed on a SWATCH FIVB World Tour podium this season. Rogers and Dalhausser are the top-ranked team with a record eight men's gold medals to their credit in 2010 along with second-, third and fourth-place finishes. Wu and Xu have won two titles this season.

Sixteen other teams remain in the 32-team double-elimination competition with one defeat each, including Boersma and Spijkers. In addition to four winner's bracket matches Friday, two elimination rounds will be play to trim the field again from 24 tandems to 12 pairs still in contention for the $30,000 first-place prize.

The PAF Open concludes Saturday with the women's "final four" matches followed by the men's semi-finals and medal matches Sunday as the winning teams for both genders will share the $30,000 first-place prizes. The PAF Open is the 13th of 14 men's events on the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour calendar with the final stop for the gender being next week in The Netherlands at The Hague. The women's 15-stop schedule concludes in China (Sanya, October 26-31) and Thailand (Phuket, November 2-7).