Santa Rosa, Philippines, November 7, 2024 – All Australian teams advanced to Round of 16 of the action-packed Day 2 of the 2024 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships at Nuvali Sand Courts on Thursday, as Thailand’s fourth seeds Pithak Tipjan/Poravid Taovato and Vanuatu’s ninth seeds Sherysyn Toko/Majabelle Lawac bowed out of the double-gender competition.
The pool round-robin preliminaries of men’s and women’s events came to a close on Thursday, with only top three teams from each pool securing their places in Round of 18 and Round of 16.
In the men’s competition, Iran’s 12th seeds Abbas Pourasgari/Alireza Aghajanighasab, Australia’s second seeds Thomas Hodges/Zachery Schubert, Australia’s third seeds D’Artagnan Potts/Jack Pearse, Indonesia’s eighth seeds Bintang Akbar/Efendi Sofyan Rachman and Thailand’s seventh seeds Netitorn Muneekul/Wachirawit Muadpha made a clean sweep with three matches in a row to top Pool A, Pool B, Pool C, Pool E and Pool F respectively. Pool D was dominated by Australia’s 16th seeds Joshua Howat/Luke Ryan, who claimed two wins against one loss.
Among those who did not make the cut for Round of 18 were Thailand’s fourth seeds Pithak Tipjan/Poravid Taovato, who picked up bronze medal at the previous edition last year in Fuzhou, China and gold medallists at the AVC Beach Tour Taoyuan Open in Chinese Taipei early this year.
Pithak and Poravid lost all matches in Pool D. After going down 1-2 to Kazakhstan’s qualifiers Dmitriy Yakovlev/Sergey Bogatu on Wednesday, the Thai duo succumbed to two losses in a row on Thursday. They lost 21-23, 14-21 to Australians Joshua Howat/Luke Ryan.
The Thais faced the similar fate in the day’s second encounter against Takahashi Takumi/Ikeda Jumpei, going down 18-21, 17-21 to the Japanese tandem to eventually crash out of the competition.
Australia’s top seeds and 2024 Mollymook Futures champions Mark Nicolaidis/Izac Carracher, fresh from 2-0 demolition of China’s Song Jinyang/Zhang Tai on Wednesday, had mixed fortunes in Pool A on Thursday, beating Japanese Malki Nassim/Kosuke Fukushima 21-16, 16-21, 15-6 in the day’s first match.
The Australian duo, however, lost 22-24, 18-21 in a well-fought battle against Iranians Abbas Pourasgari/Alireza Aghajanighasab in their second encounter.
In Pool B, Aussies D’Artagnan Potts/Jack Pearse, who demolished Iranian qualifiers Salemiinjehboroun Bahman/Khakizadeh Abolhassan 2-0 on Wednesday, remained in…
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