Santa Rosa, Philippines, November 6, 2024 – The 2024 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships got off to a thrilling start with the opening day of main draw action at Nuvali Sand Courts providing dramatic upsets, incredible comebacks and all-round drama, as Aussies showcased their talents to rule the roost.
Top 3 seeds in the men’s event, all of them from Australia, sealed Day 1 victories, with top seeds, current world No.19 and the 2024 Mollymook Futures champions Mark Nicolaidis/Izac Carracher demolishing Chinese Song Jinyang/Zhang Tai 21-16, 21-18 in Pool A.
Second seeds Thomas Hodges/Zachery Schubert, joint world No.19 and winners at the 2023 Jurmala Challenge, faced a daunting task in beating Iranian qualifiers Salemiinjehboroun Bahman/Abolhassan Khakizadeh, who picked up silver at the 2021 edition in Phuket, Thailand, 21-18, 26-24 in Pool B.
Third seeds D’Artagnan Potts/Jack Pearse, silver medallists at the AVC Beach Tour Taoyuan Open in Chinese Taipei, disposed of Filipinos Francisco Larry John/Rancel Varga 21-11, 21-16 in Pool C.
Another Australian tandem, 14th seeds Joshua Howat/Luke Ryan, also registered their first win following their exceptional 21-18, 21-15 triumph over Japan’s Takahashi Takumi/Ikeda Jumpei in Pool D.
Two strong contenders suffered a Day 1 setback, with Thailand’s fourth seeds Pithak Tipjan/Poravid Taovato and Chinese fifth seeds Wu Jiaxin/Ha Likejiang going down to their respective opponents in hard-fought three-set battles.
Contesting Pool D, Pithak/Poravid, bronze medallists at the previous edition in Fuzhou, China and champions at the AVC Beach Tour Taoyuan Open in Chinese Taipei early this year, clinched the closely-contested first set 21-19 in their tough match against Dmitriy Yakovlev/Sergey Bogatu before going down in the next two sets 19-21, 12-15 to the Kazakh qualifiers.
Chinese veterans Wu/Ha had already captured many titles in international tournaments to their name including three consecutive gold medals on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures in 2023 which comprised Sohar in Oman, Mount Maunganui in New Zealand and Coolangatta Futures in Australia.
However, it seemed that luck was not on their side with the Wednesday’s game against Mazin Alhashmi/Hood Al Jalaboubi. Losing the first set 19-21, Wu/Ha fought back hard to take the second set 21-17, but could not maintain their poise and lost the tie-breaker 8-15 to eventually go down in three-setter in Pool E.
As Pithak/Poravid succumbed to their first loss on Wednesday, the other three Thai pairings made blistering starts, with Surin Jongklang/Kittituch Khomkham powering past Kiwis Juraj Krajci/John McManaway 21-17, 21-16 in Pool B.
In Pool F, Thailand’s Netitorn Muneekul/Wachirawit Muadpha pulled off 21-18, 21-16 win against Japanese Yoshiumi Hasegawa/Dylan Hiroki Kurokawa.
Dunwinit Kaewsai/Banlue Nakprakhong struggled to beat Japan’s Kai Kurokawa/Ryuichi Adachi in three-setter 21-12, 18-21, 15-12.
In the women’s event, Chinese top seeds Wang Jingzhe/Paris Olympian Xia Xinyi claimed two consecutive wins in Pool A on Wednesday. They made a strong start with comfortable 21-14, 21-10 win against Indonesians Kaize Josephine Selvina Anasthasya/Melinda Novita Sari Devi in their opening match.
The Chinese pairing repeated the success with another easy win, 21-11, 21-16, against Australians Tara Phillips/Kayla Mears, who earlier beat Kazakhstan’s Laura Kabulbekova/Nadezhda Ivanchenko 21-12, 21-13 in their first match.
Australian second seeds Jana Milutinovic/Stefanie Fejes, the consecutive two-time Coolangatta Futures winners and champions at the Mollymook Futures, also did likewise to claim two wins in a row on Day 1, beating Japanese Kana Motomura/Nayu Motomura 21-10, 21-13 in Pool B in the Wednesday morning.
Later in the afternoon, the Australian duo came up with outstanding performance to shut out Thailand’s Patcharaporn Seehawong/Samitta Simarongnam 23-21, 21-15.
Thailand’s third seeds Taravadee Naraphornrapat/Woranatchayakorn Phirachayakrailert also proved that they are a strong team to be reckoned with in this double-gender competition. They first saw off Aussies Alisha Stevens/Cameron Zajer 21-16, 21-16 in Pool C and later beat Japanese Riko Tsujimura/Takemi Nishibori 22-20, 21-18.
Chinese Xue Chen, who teamed up with Xia Xinyi to capture the 2023 title on home soil in Fuzhou, but switched her partner this time to team up with Zeng Jinjin as fourth seeds, had a remarkable Day 1 with two effortless wins.
The Chinese duo first thrashed Japanese Ren Matsumoto/Non Matsumoto 21-14, 21-11 in the morning’s Pool D encounter to later sweep Thailand’s Salinda Mungkhon/Somruedee Koedkaew 21-11, 21-13 in the afternoon session.
Also winning two consecutive matches on Wednesday included Australians Jasmine Fleming/Elizabeth Alchin in Pool E, Chinese Yan Xu/Zhou Mi in Pool C, Indonesians Desi Ratnasari/Nur Sari Atika in Pool B and Japanese Asami Shiba/Saki Maruyama in Pool F.
The pool round-robin preliminaries continue on Thursday in both men’s and women’s events. At the end of the preliminaries, top 3 teams in each pool will secure their places in round of 18. Round of 16 will take place on Friday, followed by the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.
MATCH RESULTS
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WOMEN
POOL RANKINGS
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WOMEN
MATCH SCHEDULE
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WOMEN
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