Other events in Baltic States

Latvia's Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins on Wednesday beat Turkey's Marat Giginoglu and Hasan Mermer 2-0 (21:18, 21:10) in their first match at the European Beach Volleyball Championship Final, which this year is taking place in Jurmala, reports LETA.

Samoilovs/Smedins are seeded fourth, while Giginoglu/Mermer have been seeded 29th.

In other matches earlier, Martins Plavins and Haralds Regza lost to Italy's Alex Ranghieri and Adrian Carambula in their first Group A match 0-2 (18:21, 15:21). In Group F, Aleksandrs Solovejs and Toms Smedins were defeated by the Dutch duo of Robert Meeuwsen and Alexander Brouwer 0-2 (16:21, 17:21) and, in Group G, Rihards Finsters and Edgars Tocs lost to the 2013 European champions Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira (Spain) 0-2 (10:21, 18:21). In the meantime, 2009 European champions Ance Olte and Inese Jursone lost to Germany's Isabel Schneider and Victoria Bieneck 0-2 (14:21, 19:21), and Agnese Caica and Ilze Liepinlauska were defeated by the Czech Republic's Kristyna Kolocova and Michala Kvapilova 0-2 (15:21, 15:21).

The championship's group stage will conclude on Thursday.

This is the first time Latvia hosts the Final of the European Beach Volleyball Championship.