The Hague, Netherlands, August 25, 2010 - On a record-setting day for a team from Norway, the last Qualification Tournament on the 2010 men's SWATCH FIVB World Tour was held here Wednesday with Beach Volleyball pairs from six countries advancing to the "money" rounds at the US$380,00 Milner Open.

The second annual event on The Hague BeachStadion courts in the Scheveningen district also featured women's qualifying matches Wednesday as the opening Main Draw rounds for both genders will be played Thursday leading to Sunday's medal matches where the winning teams will share the $30,000 first-place prizes.

With 78 total matches being played Wednesday for the third busiest day in the 24-year history of the SWATCH FIVB World Tour, topping the list of qualifiers Wednesday were seven teams that posted seed-break-throughs led by 35th-seeded Martin Lebl and Mike Placek of the Czech Republic.

Lebl and Placek posted wins Wednesday over pairs from Belgium, France and Austria to match a successful qualifying effort by a 35th-seeded Russian team this past May in Myslowice, Poland. Placek is playing in his first-ever SWATCH FIVB World Tour event while Lebl played in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games with Michal Palinek.

As the 17th-seeded team in the qualifier, Brazilians Rhooney Ferramenta and Moises Santos also won three matches Thursday to advance to their first Main Draw together this season. After ousting teams from Bulgaria and Turkey, Ferramenta and Santos eliminated top-seeded Casey Jennings and Kevin Wong of the United States 21-14, 14-21 and 15-13 in 54 minutes.

Australia had three of its four teams in Wednesday's competition qualify for the Milner Open's Main Draws, including the men's pairs of fourth-seeded Christopher McHugh/Joshua Slack and ninth-seeded Sam Boehm/Isaac Kapa. Advancing for the Aussie women were Olympians Tamsin Barnett Hinchley and Natalie Cook.

Other men's qualifying teams Wednesday were the Italian pairs of 10th-seeded Gianluca Casadei/Fosco Cicola and 21st-seeded Rodolfo Cavaliere/Giorgio Zauli, and 15th-seeded Georgios Kotsilianos/Emmanouil Xenakis of Greece and 22nd-seeded Eskil Holtan/Oyvind Wergeland of Norway.

During the second-round of the men's qualifier, a FIVB Beach Volleyball record for team participation was set when Norway's Vegard Hoidalen and Jorre Kjemperud defeated Guillermo Williman and Nicolas Zanotta of Uruguay 21-14 and 21-19 in 36 minutes. The match marked the start of the Norwegians' 135th FIVB event breaking the previous record of 134 appearances set by Portugal's Joao Brenha and Miguel Maia in 2008.

Two-time Olympians for Norway, Hoidalen and Kjemperud's partnership covers a 12-season span as the pair captured a SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal at the 1998 stop in Berlin. After losing their final match Wednesday to compatriots Holtan and Wergeland, Hoidalen and Kjemperud now have won 273 of 521 FIVB matches.

The final men's event on the 14-stop SWATCH FIVB World Tour will feature top-ranked pairs from Brazil, China and Spain along with the host country's Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil, the defending Milner Open gold medal winners and reigning European champions. The Dutch pair defeated Spain's Adrian Gavira and Pablo Herrera in the 2009 The Hague BeachStadion finale for their second of three international gold medals last season.

While Nummerdor and Schuil have been hindered by injuries in 2010 by playing in only seven of the previous 13 SWATCH FIVB World Tour events this year, Gavira and Herrera are ranked third internationally with 4,420 points for their best 10 finishes this season followed by China's Penggen Wu and Linyin Xu with 4,120.

Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers of the United States and Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego of Brazil, the top two teams on the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour, did not enter this week's event. Dalhausser and Rogers had a domestic commitment while Emanuel joined his expecting wife (Leila Barros) in Rio de Janeiro for the couple's first child together. Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann, the fifth-ranked team internationally, are competing in the German national championships this weekend.

Other top-ranked teams in the field include the Brazilian pairs of Harley Marques/Pedro Salgado and Benjamin Insfran/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, the ninth- and 10th-ranked SWATCH pairs this season. With Dalhausser and Rogers winning nine of the previous 13 men's events this season, Harley and Pedro captured a gold medal in Shanghai. Wu and Xu claimed SWATCH titles earlier this season in Russia and France.

Joining Nummerdor and Schuil as host country pairs in the Main Draw are Rodin Merx/Joppe Paulides and Daan Spijkers/Emiel Boersma. While Merx and Paulides are playing in their first-ever SWATCH FIVB World Tour event together, Spijkers and Boersma have placed ninth and 17th the last two weeks at stops in Norway and Finland. Paulides and Boersma were ninth-place finishers together at the 2009 Milner Open.

With the Milner Open being the last of 14 men's events on the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour, the women's 15-stop circuit will conclude at the end of October and the first of November with stops in China (Sanya, October 26-31) and Thailand (Phuket, November 2-7). The international Beach Volleyball tour will have visited 17 sites in 14 countries over an eight-month period in 2010 with $6.83-million in prize money.