ELECTRIFYING BATTLES AND DRAMATIC DISPLAY HIGHLIGHT DAY 1 OF 2024 ASIAN SENIOR BEACH VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS IN PHILIPPINES

Santa Rosa, Philippines, November 6, 2024 – The 2024 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships left to a thrilling start with the opening day of primary draw action at Nuvali Sand Courts offering remarkable upsets, amazing returns and overall drama, as Aussies showcased their skills to rule the roost.

Top 3 seeds in the males’s occasion, all of them from Australia, sealed Day 1 triumphes, with front runners, existing world No.19 and the 2024 Mollymook Futures champs Mark Nicolaidis/Izac Carracher destroying 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, dealt with a challenging job in whipping Iranian qualifiers Salemiinjehboroun Bahman/Abolhassan Khakizadeh, who got 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, likewise registered their very first win following their extraordinary 21-18, 21-15 accomplishment over Japan’s Takahashi Takumi/Ikeda Jumpei in Pool D.

Two strong competitors suffered a Day 1 obstacle, with Thailand’s 4th seeds Pithak Tipjan/Poravid Taovato and Chinese 5th seeds Wu Jiaxin/Ha Likejiang decreasing to their particular challengers in hard-fought three-set fights.

Contesting Pool D, Pithak/Poravid, bronze medallists at the previous edition in Fuzhou, China and champs at the AVC Beach Tour Taoyuan Open in Chinese Taipei early this year, clinched the closely-contested very first set 21-19 in their difficult match versus Dmitriy Yakovlev/Sergey Bogatu before decreasing in the next 2 sets 19-21, 12-15 to the Kazakh qualifiers.

Chinese veterans Wu/Ha had actually currently caught lots of titles in worldwide competitions to their name consisting of 3 successive gold medals on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures in 2023 which made up Sohar in Oman, Mount Maunganui in New Zealand and Coolangatta Futures in Australia.

However, it appeared that luck was not on their side with the Wednesday’s video game versus Mazin Alhashmi/Hood Al Jalaboubi. Losing the very first set 19-21, Wu/Ha resisted difficult to take the 2nd set 21-17, however might not preserve their grace and lost the tie-breaker 8-15 to ultimately decrease in three-setter in Pool E.

As Pithak/Poravid caught their very first loss on Wednesday, the other 3 Thai pairings made blistering starts, with Surin Jongklang/Kittituch Khomkham powering previous Kiwis Juraj Krajci/John McManaway 21-17, 21-16 in Pool B.

In Pool F, Thailand’s Netitorn Muneekul/Wachirawit Muadpha managed 21-18, 21-16 win versus Japanese Yoshiumi Hasegawa/Dylan Hiroki Kurokawa.

Dunwinit Kaewsai/Banlue Nakprakhong had a hard time to beat Japan’s Kai Kurokawa/Ryuichi Adachi in three-setter 21-12, 18-21, 15-12.

In the ladies’s occasion, Chinese front runners Wang Jingzhe/Paris Olympian Xia Xinyi declared 2 successive wins in Pool A on Wednesday. They made a strong start with comfy 21-14, 21-10 win versus Indonesians Kaize Josephine Selvina Anasthasya/Melinda Novita Sari Devi in their opening match.

The Chinese matching duplicated the success with another simple win, 21-11, 21-16, versus Australians Tara Phillips/Kayla Mears, who earlier beat Kazakhstan’s Laura Kabulbekova/Nadezhda Ivanchenko 21-12, 21-13 in their very first match.

Australian 2nd seeds Jana Milutinovic/Stefanie Fejes, the successive two-time Coolangatta Futures winners and champs at the Mollymook Futures, likewise did also to declare 2 wins in a row on Day 1, beating Japanese Kana Motomura/Nayu Motomura 21-10, 21-13 in Pool B in the Wednesday early morning.

Later in the afternoon, the Australian duo developed impressive efficiency to lock out Thailand’s Patcharaporn Seehawong/Samitta Simarongnam 23-21, 21-15.

Thailand’s 3rd seeds Taravadee Naraphornrapat/Woranatchayakorn Phirachayakrailert likewise showed that they are a strong group to be considered in this double-gender competitors. They initially 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 coordinated with Xia Xinyi to catch the 2023 title on home soil in Fuzhou, however changed her partner this time to partner with Zeng Jinjin as 4th seeds, had an exceptional Day 1 with 2 uncomplicated wins.

The Chinese duo initially surged Japanese Ren Matsumoto/Non Matsumoto 21-14, 21-11 in the early morning’s Pool D encounter to later on sweep Thailand’s Salinda Mungkhon/Somruedee Koedkaew 21-11, 21-13 in the afternoon session.

Also winning 2 successive matches on Wednesday consisted of 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 swimming pool round-robin preliminaries continue Thursday in both males’s and ladies’s occasions. At completion of the preliminaries, leading 3 groups in each swimming pool will protect their locations in round of 18. Round of 16 will occur on Friday, followed by the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.