The Hague, Netherlands, August 27, 2010 - Emiel Boersma and Daan Spijkers of The Netherlands gave the host country a second team in Saturday’s semi-finals after the Dutch Beach Volleyball pair posted a pair of wins here Friday at the US$380,000 Milner Open on The Hague BeachStadion courts in the Scheveningen district.

Seeded 10th in the competition and playing in only their third SWATCH FIVB World Tour event together, Boersma and Spijkers posted wins over teams from China and Italy to join their female compatriots of Sanne Keizer and Marleen Van Iersel to advance two Dutch teams Friday to Saturday’s men’s and women’s semi-finals.

Joining Boersma and Spijkers as the first two men’s “final four” qualifiers Friday were Casey Jennings and Kevin Wong as the 21st-seeded Americans defeated two teams from Norway and Brazil Friday to advance to a SWATCH semi-final for the first-time as the Milner Open is their second international Beach Volleyball event together after placing ninth last week in Finland.

Six other Beach Volleyball pairs remain in the competition, including 22nd-seeded Matteo Ingrosso and Matteo Martino of Italy and eighth-seeded Benjamin Insfran and Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil. Ingrosso and Martino dropped their quarter-final match to Boersma and Spijkers 17-21, 21-17 and 15-12 in 54 minutes while the Americans posted a 27-29, 21-18 and 15-12 win in 66 minutes over Benjamin and Bruno.

To start play Friday where the women were playing alongside the men, Boersma and Spijkers posted a 21-17, 18-21 and 15-6 victory in 51 minutes while Jennings and Wong opened with a 21-16 and 21-18 win in 39 minutes over 13th-seeded Tarjei Skarlund and Martin Spinnangr of Norway.

The Milner Open “final four” marks Boersma’s second semi-final appearance after he and Bram Ronnes placed fourth at the 2008 Norwegian Grand Slam in Stavanger during their successful qualifying bid for the Beijing Olympic Games where the Dutch pair placed 17th.

Prior to this week’s Milner Open, Spijkers’ best SWATCH FIVB World Tour placement was a ninth two weeks ago with Boersma in Kristiansand, Norway. The Milner Open is only Spijkers third appearance in a SWATCH Main Draw as he teamed with Niels van de Sande to place 17th last season in an FIVB event at Shanghai, China.

Jennings will be playing in his fourth SWATCH semi-final in the past three seasons as he finished fourth at June’s Russian Grand Slam stop in Moscow with Brad Keenan. A fifth-place finisher at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games with Rob Heidger, Wong will be playing in his 13th FIVB semi-final, but his first since placing second at the 2003 Austrian Grand Slam in Klagenfurt with Stein Metzger.

The opponent for Jennings and Wong in the first men’s semi-final Saturday will be either Ingrosso/Martino, Skarlund/Spinnangr or top-seeded Matt Fuerbringer/Nick Lucena of the United States. Skarlund and Spinnangr play the Americans in an opening elimination match with the winner playing Ingrosso and Martino for a “final four” spot opposite of Jennings and Wong.

To determine Boersma and Spijkers’ semi-final opponent, Benjamin and Bruno will play the winner of the elimination match between 28th-seeded qualifiers Sam Boehm/Isaac Kapa of Australia and 15th-seeded Anders Lund Hoyer/Bo Soderberg of Denmark. Before this week’s event, Boehm and Kapa had never won a SWATCH FIVB World Tour Main Draw together as their Milner Open mark includes two qualifying wins and four victories in the “money” rounds.

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.