Australia and China retained respective men’s and women’s titles in 2024 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships
Santa Rosa, Philippines, November 10, 2024 – Australia and China captured back-to-back titles at the 2024 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships, which came to a fruitful conclusion at Nuvali Sand Courts in the City of Santa Rosa on Sunday, with D’Artagnan Potts/Jack Pearse landing the men’s title and Wang Jingzhe/Xia Xinyi crowned the women’s champions.
In the men’s showdown, third seeds Potts/Pearse pulled off upset 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) win against compatriots and top seeds Mark Nicolaidis/Izac Carracher, who claimed the 2024 Mollymook Futures title and 2023 AVC Beach Tour Penghu Open in Chinese Taipei to their name.
Potts/Pearse, both on their Asian Championships debut and had only played two Asian Tour events together in the same team including this year’s AVC Beach Tour Taoyuan Open in Chinese Taipei, where they picked up silver medal, did not lose a match en route to winning the men’s title, the Volleyroos’ 7th since the championship inception in 2000 in Yangjiang, China.
Australia had already captured the men’s title in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024.
In the third-place playoff earlier, Iran’s 12th seeds Abbas Pourasgari/Alireza Aghajanighasab, who had already claimed two AVC Beach Tour events this year comprising the Nuvali Open in Philippines and the Tianjin Open in China plus silver medal at the AVC Beach Tour Samila Open in Thailand in April, demolished China’s fifth seeds Wu Jiaxin/Ha Likejiang 2-0 (21-15, 21-17).
Wu, 29 and Ha, 30, had won many international tournaments including three consecutive gold medals on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour in 2023 (Sohar, Mount Maunganui and Coolangatta Futures) as well as silver medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2022. But this time, the Chinese duo fell short and could not make the podium.
Meanwhile, the women’s all-Chinese final affair saw top-rated Wang Jingzhe/Xia Xinyi power past fourth seeds Xue Chen/Zeng Jinjin 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) for the crown.
Wang/Xia were unbeaten en route to winning their title, dropping only one set (2-1) to compatriots Yan Xu/Zhou Mingli in the quarterfinals.
China had claimed 12 women’s titles in the Asian Championships and among them were four from Xia Xinyi. Xia took her first Asian Championships title in 2016 with her partner Xue Chen. She claimed her second title in 2020 with new partner Wang…
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