Dalhausser, Ricardo and Bruno all moved in to the Round of 16

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Three beach volleyball Olympic champions avoided early elimination in the A1 Vienna Major presented by Swatch as they emerged from the men’s tournament Round of 24 on Friday and booked their places in to the weekend at the Danube Island.

USA’s Phil Dalhausser, a gold medalist at the 2008 Beijing Games, and partner Nick Lucena rebounded from a setback to a Latvian team on Thursday by taking down Austrians Robin Seidl and Philipp Waller in two sets (21-17, 21-15). They will now face Rio 2016 bronze medalists, Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands.

“I thought it was a very high-level match with not many errors,” Phil, nicknamed ‘The Thin Beast’, said after the game. “We sided out very and they did it too. We had an early lead, but they came back. I’m happy with the way we played.”

Ricardo Santos, an Olympic champion from the 2004 Athens Games, recorded his fifth victory in six matches in Vienna as partner Guto Carvalhes and him prevailed over Czech Republic’s Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner 21-14, 21-19. The Brazilians’ next opponents will be the Swatch Major Gstaad winners, Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sørum.

Reigning Olympic champion Bruno Schmidt of Brazil also remained in contention at the Danube Island as Pedro Solberg and him downed Spaniards Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira in two sets (21-16, 21-16). They will play Bruno’s former partner, Alison Cerutti, and Andre Loyola for a spot in the quarterfinals.

The other five teams to survive the Round of 24 in Vienna were Austria’s Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst and Martin Ermacora/Moritz Pristauz, Brazil’s Evandro Goncalves/Vitor Felipe, Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek/Michal Bryl and Russia’s Konstantin Semenov/Illya Leshukov.

Saturday’s schedule for the men will feature both the Round of 16 and the quarterfinals. Click here to see the schedule.