MARSEILLE, FRANCE - Three teams from the Women's Professional Volleyball Association advance to the women's quarter-finals following play here Thursday (July 24) in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event.

Second-seeded Lisa Arce (Manhattan Beach, Calif.) and Holly McPeak (Manhattan Beach), fifth-seeded Barbra Fontana (Manhattan Beach) and Linda Hanley (Pacific Palisades, Calif.), and 10th-seeded Danalee Bragado (Honolulu, Hi./Hermosa Beach, Calif.) and Marla O'Hara (Agoura Hills, Calif.) each won two matches Thursday.

Fifteenth-seeded Liz Masakayan and Elaine Youngs, who won the last WPVA event in Chicago, Ill. by defeating Arce and McPeak 16-14 in the finals, finished ninth to share $2,500. The pair split two matches Thursday and were eliminated 23-21 and 21-18 by Arce and McPeak.

The FIVB event, fourth international stop of 1997, is a 32-team single-elimination tournament. Each match is the best two out of three games with rallying score to 21 (win by two with no cap).

The France stop, which also includes men's competition, features the same format as September's World Championship in Los Angeles. The $600,000 event at UCLA's Tennis Center is set for September 10- 13.

Arce and McPeak, who won the last FIVB event in Pescara, Italy July 6, face Bragado and O'Hara in the fourth and final quarter-final match Friday with the winners advancing to the semi-finals later in the day against either third-seeded Monica Rodriques and Adriana Samuel of Brazil or sixth-seeded Maike Friedrichsen and Danja Musch of Germany.

In a rematch of the bronze medal match from the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Fontana and Hanley challenge fourth-seeded Natalie Cook and Kerri Pottharst of Australia. The Aussies won the Atlanta meeting 12-11 and 12-7 to finish third last summer.

Top-seeded Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar, who have finished second in the last two FIVB events in Melbourne, Australia and Pescara, play ninth-seeded Liane Fenwick and Pauline Manser in the other quarter-final match.

Brazilians Sandra Pires and Jackie Silva, who defeated Rodrigues and Samuel to win the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, withdrew from the event earlier this week due to injuries. Pires and Silva won FIVB Australian stop in March while Rodrigues and Samuel won February's season opener in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.