Australia’s Hodges & Schubert settle for silver, Italy’s Dal Corso & Marco Viscovich claim bronze
USA’s Evan Cory & Cody Caldwell completed their incredible run from the Haikou Challenge qualifications on Wednesday all the way to the top of the podium on Sunday to crown their second Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour appearance together (after the Goa Challenge back in 2022) with the first Challenge-level medal for either of them. Previously on the Tour, Cory had a gold and Caldwell had a bronze from Futures tournaments. Together in Haikou they produced an 8-1 run to the trophy.
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Top-seeded Thomas Hodges & Zachery Schubert, Paris 2024 Olympians from Australia, settled for silver, their seventh Beach Pro Tour medal as a team and first for 2024.
The bronze went to fourth-seeded Gianluca Dal Corso & Marco Viscovich of Italy. They both have large collections of Futures medals, but it was the first time for either of them to make it to a Challenge tournament podium.
The 2024 Haikou Challenge men’s podium
Sunday’s gold medal match was decided in straight sets, but there was a lot of drama in the ends of both sets. Hodges & Schubert were the first to reach set point at 20-19, but 16th-seeded Cory & Caldwell turned it around in the overtime to take the lead in the match. The Aussies even had a quadruple set point at 20-16 in the second set, but once again, the Americans made an amazing comeback to close the match at 2-0 (23-21, 23-21). Hodges was the best scorer of the final with 20 points, including four aces and three kill blocks. Cory led the winners with four blocks and three aces towards an 18-point tally. Caldwell added another 10 points, including two aces.
“I don’t even know how to describe it right now,” said Cory after the final. “Cody and I have battled all week. We had a lot of faith in each other. We never really gave up and it’s awesome! We’ve worked a lot since 2020 and we’ve been grinding both separately, and to be able to come here together today and win this is pretty indescribable.”
“It’s so good! It’s been a long time coming and we’ve put in a lot of work and it’s pretty incredible to see it all come together,” Caldwell added. “There is not a lot of opportunities to do something like this, so it’s pretty cool.”
Similarly, the bronze medal match was decided in two sets, both resolved by the narrowest of margins towards a 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) victory for Dal Corso & Viscovich over third-seeded Philipp Huster & Maximilian Just of Germany. Two aces and two opponent errors tilted the balance the Italians’ way. Dal Corso delivered a match-high total of 23 points, including four blocks and three aces, while Huster was his team’s most prolific scorer with 16 points.
Huster/Just vs. Dal Corso/Viscovich – Bronze Match Highlights | Haikou 2024 #BeachProTour
In the first semifinal on Sunday morning, Hodges & Schubert dominated the first set against Huster & Just, but the second was pushed to overtime before the Australians could celebrate a 2-0 (21-11, 23-21) victory. Hodges made a remarkable contribution of eight aces in the match to finish with a total of 19 points, while Huster put away four aces and four kill blocks towards a match-high 21 points.
Cory & Caldwell took revenge from Dal Corso & Viscovich for the defeat in the winners match in Pool D by mastering an emphatic 2-0 (21-13, 21-14) shutout of the Italians in the second semifinal. In addition to taking advantage of the abundant opponent errors, the Americans capitalized on Cory’s six aces and four kill blocks towards a 17-point tally, which made him the best scorer of the match.
VW Beach Pro Tour Haikou Challenge: all results
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