Canada’s Ben Saxton (Calgary, AB) and Grant O’Gorman (Scarborough, ON) play in today’s men’s quarterfinals at the FIVB US$150,000 Edmonton Open at Northlands Park.
Two rounds of men’s action Saturday begins with quarterfinal matches featuring top-seeded O’Gorman/Saxton of Canada meeting sixth-seeded Chase Budinger/Casey Patterson of the United States.
Also today, Canada’s Sam Schachter (Richmond Hill, ON) and Sam Pedlow (Barrie, ON) – competing at a 4 star event in Espinho, Portugal – advanced to the quarterfinals, and will face Chile later Saturday.
Back in Edmonton, Canada’s 2019 World Champions Sarah Pavan (Kitchener, ON) and Melissa Humana-Paredes (Toronto) area also in the quarters.
Seeded first in the inaugural Edmonton Open, Humana-Paredes and Pavan posted two wins on Friday to improve their season record to 35-11 by defeating teams from the United States and Japan to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinals against 25th-seeded qualifier Monika Brzostek/Aleksandra Gromadowska of Poland
“These last few weeks have been surreal, we really didn’t have a lot of time to process all that happened,” said the 25-year old Humana-Paredes. “We’re so happy that we’re here in our home soil sharing the moment with our fans and feeling their love and their appreciation.”
With 17 wins in their last 20 FIVB World Tour matches, Humana-Paredes said “it felt really nice to be playing on centre court in front of a nice home crowd. Things were flowing for us and it all went really smooth.”
Canada’s Nicole and Megan McNamara were eliminated in the second round of playoffs on Friday by Japan’s Akiko Hasegawa and Azusa Futami (2-1). The Canadians from B.C. finish ninth overall.
Canadian women’s teams also finished ranked 17th: Julie Gordon/Shanice Marcelle and Taylor Pischke/ Sophie Bukovec. Marie-Christine Lapointe/Amanda Harnett were 25th.
On the men’s side, Canadians Jake MacNeil/Will Hoey, Aaron Nusbaum/ Mike Plantinga and Cam Wheelan/Sergiy Grabovskyy finished Edmonton ranked 25th.
