World champs and Fort Lauderdale winners make it through

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World champions Andre (left) and Evandro were made to work for their first in at Huntington

It was a good day for top men’s seeds at Huntington Beach on Thursday with a number of the beach elite making it through to the third round of the four-star event in California.

World champions Evandro Goncalves and Andre Loyola had to dig deep as the Brazilians edged a three-set thriller against Canada’s Nusbaum/Plantinga. The heroes from Vienna last season will meet Norway’s Beachvolley Vikings, Anders Mol and Christian Sørum in round three.

Fort Lauderdale Major champs and home favorites, Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena, had a much easier passage to round three as the top seeds beat fellow Americans Drost/Frishman in straight sets (21-19, 12-17). Nick and Phil now face the FTL Major 2017 title winners Alvaro/Saymon for a place in the quarterfinals.

There were also wins for Olympic champions Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt and the bronze medalists from Rio, Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, while Austrian World Championship silver medalists Alex Horst and Clemens Doppler were also victorious.

Day one of the main draw saw the number of teams whittled down from 48 to 32 as the double elimination process took its first victims. Among those duos making an early exit was World Tour debutant Chase Budinger and teammate Sean Rosenthal, who lost their elimination match to Brazilian legend Ricardo and Oscar.

The third round men’s action begins at 10.10am PST, while first up on Friday is the women’s winners bracket which starts at 8.30am PST.