The Hague, Netherlands, August 26, 2010 - The fortunes of two teams awarded "lucky loser" berths for this week's men's SWATCH FIVB World Tour event took two different paths after the Beach Volleyball pairs from China and the United States met in an opening Main Draw match here Thursday at the US$380,000 Milner Open on The Hague BeachStadion courts in the Scheveningen district.

The "ups-and-downs" for the teams of 12th-seeded Peng Gao/Jian Li of China and 21st-seeded Casey Jennings/Kevin Wong of the United States began Wednesday afternoon during the men's qualifying for the Milner Open where the top two-seeded teams in the preliminary round were defeated in the final round by pairs from Greece and Brazil with the prospects of playing Thursday renewed when tandems from Latvia and New Zealand were late withdrawals from the SWATCH FIVB World Tour event.

In the first of two meetings with the Americans in a 12-hour period, Gao and Li won a draw over the Americans to win the first "lucky loser" berth to fill the first vacancy for the Main Draw. Facing elimination via the second draw Wednesday evening at the Milner Open technical meeting, Jennings and Wong gained a spot in the "money" rounds by having their name read as the winner instead of Norwegian Olympians Vegard Hoidalen and Jorre Kjemperud.

Jennings and Wong avenged the Chinese draw win Thursday morning by defeating Gao and Li 21-14 and 21-19 in 29 minutes to advance to their second match against 28th-seeded qualifiers Sam Boehm and Isaac Kapa of Australia, who upset fifth-seeded Florian Gosch and Alexander Horst of Austria 24-22, 21-23 and 15-13 in 55 minutes.

While the Americans prevailed over Boehm and Kapa 21-18 and 21-12 in 36 minutes to advance as one of eight unbeaten teams to Friday's schedule, Gao and Li's streak of "bad luck" on the sand ended with a 21-12, 15-21 and 15-10 setback to Gosch and Horst as the Austrians remain in contention for the $30,000 first-place prize in the last of 12 double gender events on the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour calendar.

Matt Fuerbringer and Nick Lucena posted the second perfect match mark for the United States Thursday by protecting their top seed in the 32-team double-elimination Main Draw with victories over pairs from the Czech Republic and Russia to advance to a Friday confrontation with eighth-seeded Brazilians Benjamin Insfran and Bruno Oscar Schmidt. The two teams will be meeting for the second-time this season with Fuerbringer and Lucena defeating Benjamin and Bruno in three sets at the Norwegian Grand Slam in Stavanger.

The Fuerbringer/Lucena versus Benjamin/Bruno victor will play either Jennings/Wong or 13th-seeded Tarjei Skarlund/Martin Spinnangr of Norway for a spot in Saturday's first semi-final match. Jennings and Wong, who are playing in only their second SWATCH FIVB World Tour together after placing ninth last week in Finland, will be facing the Norwegians for the first-time.

In the bottom half of the Milner Open winner's bracket, third-seeded Harley Marques and Pedro Salgado of Brazil will play 22nd-seeded Matteo Ingrosso and Matteo Martino of Italy with the winner playing either second-seeded Penggen Wu and Linyin Xu of China or 10th-seeded Emiel Boersma and Daan Spijkers of The Netherlands for a semi-final spot. Since the Italians are playing in their first world tour event together, the Matteos will be playing Harley and Salgado for the first-time as will the Dutch pair against Wu and Xu as the Milner Open is Boersma and Spijkers'  third FIVB event together.

Sixteen other teams remain in the Milner Open competition with one defeat each as the competition continues through the weekend. With semi-final action for both genders Saturday afternoon, the medal matches will be played Sunday on The Hague BeachStadion courts. Competing in the elimination bracket are 2009 Milner Open finalists Reinder Nummerdor/Richard Schuil of The Netherlands and Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera of Spain. Both teams were upset in the opening round Thursday by pairs from Austria and Greece before rebounding with contender's bracket wins in the afternoon.