Sentosa, Singapore, May 27, 2007 - Talita Antuntes and Renata Ribeiro completed their most successful weekend in the past 20 months on the SWATCH-FIVB World Tour as the young Brazilians “surprised” the top two teams on the international Beach Volleyball circuit to capture the US$200,000 Singapore Open here Sunday on Siloso Beach.

Seeded third in the 32-team Main Draw field for the inaugural Singapore Open, Talita and Renata won their first SWATCH stop since September 2005 to claim their third FIVB gold medal together by upsetting second-seeded Jie Wang and Jia Tian 21-15 and 21-19 in 43 minutes to avenge an earlier defeated in the competition to the Chinese pair.

Combined with their 21-18 and 21-16 semi-final victory Saturday afternoon over top-seeded Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca of Brazil, Talita and Renata captured the $32,000 first-place prize at the second of 18 stops on the 2007 women’s SWATCH-FIVB World Tour calendar. Renata and Talita previous SWATCH gold medals were back-to-back titles in September 2005 in Athens and Bali. 

INFORMATION FORM F I V B FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE VOLLEYBALL

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China 1 vs China 2

Singapore becomes the ninth country in the Asian Volleyball Confederation to stage a SWATCH-FIVB World Tour event as Sentosa hosts its inaugural event for women. Prior to the 2007 season, a total of 35 SWATCH women's events have been held by AVC-member countries (Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau and Thailand). The event will be the second of three-straight women's events in Asia starting with a stop in Shanghai and concluding with the FIVB's first Beach Volleyball event in Seoul. A fourth women's SWATCH stop will be staged in Asia with a season-ending event in Thailand as the 2007 Beach Volleyball campaign begins the qualifying process for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Sentosa, which means tranquillity in Malay, is a popular island resort visited by some two million people a year. A major tourist attraction, it hosts a sheltered beach of more than two kilometres in length on its southern coast, a musical fountain which uses the interaction of lasers against water particles to create three-dimensional images, and historical fortifications in Fort Siloso, dating from World War II.