New pair Clancy & Johnson off to a difficult, but successful start
Taliqua Clancy in reception
As the first leg of the women’s pool stage at the Haikou Challenge on the 2024 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour took place on Thursday, 12 match winners secured advancement to the knockout stage and will play on Friday to top their pools and jump straight to the second elimination round. Among them were Australia’s reunited Stefanie Fejes & Jana Milutinovic and newly partnered Taliqua Clancy & Georgia Johnson, who will clash with each other for the first place in Pool E.
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Upon their Beach Pro Tour debut as a team, Georgia Johnson and three-time Olympian and Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Taliqua Clancy, seeded fifth in the Haikou main draw, had a rough start against Chinese qualifiers Cao Shuting & Zhang Xinchen and were pushed to a third set in their opening Pool E match. The Australians persevered through an overtime tie-breaker and eventually celebrated a 2-1 (21-14, 13-21, 17-15) victory, with Clancy chipping in with as many as seven aces.
In the other Pool E match, Johnson’s previous partner, 19-year-old Stefanie Fejes, and Jana Milutinovic, with whom Fejes had played before Johnson, defeated Spain’s Belen Carro & Sofia Gonzalez in straight sets. In a duel between two teams that emerged from the qualifications, the eighth-seeded Aussies mastered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-14) shutout, with Fejes producing four aces and Milutinovic raising five kill blocks.
On Friday, at 14:00 local time (06:00 UTC), the two Australian duos will go head to head for a direct passage to the second knockout round.
Two more teams that made their way to the main draw through the qualification grind went on to win their first pool matches as well.
19th-seeded Molly Shaw & Toni Rodriguez of the United States mastered a 2-0 (21-16, 21-15) sweep of their Pool F encounter with sixth-seeded Yan Xu & Zhou Mingli of China and will try to stay on the winning track as they meet French Olympians Clemence Vieira & Aline Chamereau for the first place in the pool.
The other pair of French Paris 2024 Olympians, Lezana Placette & Alexia Richard, seeded 21st, came back from a set down against fourth-seeded Shaunna Polley & Olivia MacDonald of New Zealand to celebrate a dramatic 2-1 (11-21, 21-17, 19-17) victory in their Pool D opener. Next, they will go against 16th-seeded Wang Xinxin & Dong Jie of China for the top of the pool.
Top-seeded home pair Wang Jingzhe & Xia Xinyi will take on 13th-seeded Brook Bauer & Madelyne Anderson of USA in the Pool A winners’ match. Pool B’s first-place final will also offer a Chinese-American battle between second-seeded Xue Chen & Zeng Jinjin and 14th-seeded Hailey Harward & Kylie Kuyava-De Berg. Third-seeded Niina Ahtiainen & Taru Lahti-Liukkonen of Finland will face 10th-seeded Asami Shiba & Reika Murakami of Japan for the top of Pool C.
Xue/Zeng vs. Kvedaraite/Kovalskaja – Pool Play Highlights | Haikou 2024 #BeachProTour
Haikou Challenge women’s main draw action will resume on Friday morning at 12:00 local time (04:00 UTC) with the second leg of pool-stage matches.
VW Beach Pro Tour Haikou Challenge: schedule and results
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