Duos from Volleyball Empowerment supported Hungary, Australia and Thailand win the men’s medals, while pairs from China and Japan get on the women’s podium
- Domonkos Doczi & Bence Attila Streli win Qingdao Futures to claim FIVB Volleyball Empowerment supported Hungary’s first ever Beach Pro Tour gold
- Australia’s Joshua Howat & Luke Ryan and Thailand’s Netitorn Muneekul & Poravid Taovato earn silver and bronze, also with support from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment
- China’s Wang Jingzhe & Mushajiang Aheidan and Jiang Kaiyue & Yu Tong, and Japan’s Asami Shiba & Chika Nakagawa line up on the women’s podium
Three teams benefitting from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment support occupied the entire men’s podium at the Qingdao Futures in China. Domonkos Doczi & Bence Attila Streli (pictured in the main photo; credits: hunvolley.hu) earned their first Beach Pro Tour medal by topping the podium on Sunday.
It was not only Hungary’s second Beach Pro Tour medal for the weekend, after their compatriots Boldizsar Borbely & Lukas Niemeier claimed silver at the Bujumbura Futures on Saturday, but also Hungary’s first Beach Pro Tour gold ever.
Australia’s Joshua Howat & Luke Ryan and Thailand’s Netitorn Muneekul & Poravid Taovato earned silver and bronze, also with support from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment. In the women’s tournament, home pairs Wang Jingzhe & Mushajiang Aheidan and Jiang Kaiyue & Yu Tong, and Japan’s Asami Shiba & Chika Nakagawa, in that order, took the gold, the silver and the bronze.
The Hungarian Volleyball Federation’s beach volleyball department has been allocated CHF 36,000 in coach support for their men’s duos, trained by Izsak Soos, and another CHF 5,000 for national team coaches development. 21-year-old Doczi and 23-year-old Streli, seeded 12th in the Qingdao main draw, pushed their way through the tournament on a five-game winning streak, but in three of their matches, including the last two, they had to come back from a set down before winning in the tie-breakers. In their semifinal against fourth-seeded home pair Wang Yanwei & Du Hongjun, the Hungarian duo managed a 2-1 (15-21, 21-16, 15-12) win, and in the gold medal showdown, they persevered through an epic 2-1 (23-25, 21-18, 18-16) saga to claim victory over 11th-seeded Joshua Howat & Luke Ryan for the trophy. It was the pair’s first ever gold and first ever podium on the Beach Pro Tour. With another partner, Streli took a Cervia Futures silver last year.
Volleyball Australia has so far been granted a total of CHF 180,000 worth of FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national beach volleyball teams. Joey Yigit is at the helm of the country’s men’s pairs. It was only the second Beach Pro Tour appearance for the Australian pairing of 22-year-old Joshua Howat and 19-year-old Luke Ryan, but they celebrated their first podium, both as a team and individually. They started their Qingdao campaign from the qualification bracket, but lined up six straight-set wins in a row to reach the final. In their semifinal, the Australian pair produced a 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) victory over second-seeded Netitorn Muneekul & Poravid Taovato.
The Thailand Volleyball Association’s beach volleyball department has so far been allocated a total of CHF 216,000 worth of FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support and their national teams have been training under the guidance of Brazilian coach Adriana Bento. 22-year-old Netitorn and 23-year-old Poravid bounced back from their semifinal loss with a 2-0 (21-14, 21-11) sweep of the third place match against Wang & Du to pick up the duo’s first Beach Pro Tour medal. Poravid has claimed a gold and a silver from a previous partnership.
In the women’s competition, 27-year-old Wang Jingzhe, who managed to win gold at five of her six appearances on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour in 2019 along with Wen Shuhui, celebrated her first Beach Pro Tour gold as she and 23-year-old Mushajiang Aheidan topped the podium at the Qingdao 2024 tournament. It was the first world-level medal for Mushajiang Aheidan. The fourth-seeded team from China went through the tournament on a run of five consecutive victories without dropping a single set. They mastered a 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) sweep of their semifinal against 15th-seeded Asami Shiba & Chika Nakagawa and followed up with a 2-0 (23-21, 21-17) victory in the final against 19-year-old Jiang Kaiyue & Yu Tong, also of China.
Sixth-seeded Jiang & Yu, who started their quest for the podium from the qualifications, reached the final on a series of five consecutive wins, but as many as three of them came on injury forfeits by other opponents, including the semifinal against 11th-seeded qualifiers Han Wenqin & Qi Siyu of China. It was the pair’s second Futures silver in a row after they finished runners-up in Qidong a week earlier. For Yu, it was the third consecutive silver medal as she also finished second at May’s Qingshan Futures with a different partner.
28-year-old Shiba of Japan, on the other hand, earned her second back-to-back (and overall third) bronze a week after she and Saki Maruyama finished third in Qidong. This time in a pairing with 29-year-old Nakagawa, Shiba made the podium again after a 2-1 (17-21, 21-16, 15-13) comeback in the bronze medal match against Han & Qi. It was the first Beach Pro Tour medal in Nakagawa’s career.
27 men’s and 23 women’s teams representing a total of 15 different countries took part in the Qingdao Futures. This week’s Beach Pro Tour schedule offers another two Futures events, a women’s tournament in Castellon de la Plana, Spain from 18 to 22 September, and a double-gender competition in Balikesir, Türkiye from 19 to 23 September.
Qingdao Futures: results and standings
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