Excitement begins in China as men’s pools announced

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Will Latvians Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs be celebrating in China this week? Photo credit: Philipp Schuster

The battle to reach the men’s main draw at this week’s Xiamen Open has reached its dramatic conclusion and now it’s time for the tournament to really take off in the pool matches!

Italian pair Alex Ranghieri and Adrian Carambula, the Tour’s most recent winners following their success in the Qatar Open last week, face competition in their quest for a second successive title in Pool C alongside teams from Poland, Germany and Serbia.

Number one seeds Chaim Schalk and Ben Saxton of Canada take on tough challengers from Austria, home nation China and Latvia in Pool A.

Sorry, did somebody just say Latvia?! Well if you cast your minds back to last year you’ll remember that Latvian duo Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs enjoyed a superb tournament, winning a bronze medal. They came so close to reaching the gold medal match but lost a keenly-tested semi-final to eventual runners-up Markus Böckermann and Lars Flüggen (GER).

Can Smedins and Samoilovs go one better this year? Well we’ll find out over the course of the week as the action hots up in China and we’ll have the news from their matches in Pool D which pits the Latvians against teams from Turkey, Canada and China.

Meanwhile the women’s tournament began with a bang with qualification matches on Tuesday and we’ll have all the news from the first and second rounds of qualification online on Wednesday – all for your pleasure!

As ever it promises to be a week full of thrills and skills on the sand so remember to keep your eyes peeled on our website for the news of all the winners and losers in China.

Click here for full details of the men’s pool draw.

Click here for details of the women’s qualification fixtures and results.