All top four seeds cruise to women’s semifinals, Thailand’s top seeds Pitak/Poravid seek a revenge match against Nuvali Open champions
Songkhla, Thailand, April 15, 2024 – Anticipation has reached a fever pitch at the AVC Beach Tour 23rd Samila Open when top teams powered their ways into the action-packed semifinals, with Australia’s top two seeds setting up rematches with old foes in the women’s event and Thailand’s top seeds Pitak Tipjan/Poravid Taovato locking horns with Iranians Abbas Pourasgari/Alireza Aghajanighasab in the men’s final rematch of the last week’s Nuvali Open in Philippines.
In terms of the participating countries in the women’s semifinals on Tuesday, it will be an all-Oceanians battle between Australia and New Zealand in the first encounter, with Australia up against Japan in the second match. The men’s semifinals see Thailand challenge Iran and Australia take on New Zealand in another all-Oceanians affair.
In the women’s event, Australia’s top seeds Stefanie Fejes/Jana Milutinovic take on Kiwi fourth seeds Alice Zeimann/Shaunna Polley, to whom they lost in the gold-medal match at this year’s BPT Futures Mount Maunganui, as Australian second seeds Jasmine Fleming/Georgia Johnson set up last week’s Nuvali Open semifinals rematch with Japan’s third seeds Asami Shiba/Saki Maruyama.
Thailand’s top seeds Pithak Tipjan/Poravid Taovato, who succumbed to two-set loss to Iranians Abbas Pourasgari/Alireza Aghajanighasab in the men’s final at the last week’s AVC Beach Tour Nuvali Open in Philippines, are looking forward to avenging the Iranians, who have their sights firmly set on winning back-to-back AVC Beach Tour event. The other semifinal clash see Australia’s fifth seeds Paul Burnet/Jack Pearse fight it out with Kiwi sixth seeds Thomas Reid/John McManaway.
Earlier on Monday morning, qualified teams tried to play their best in the round of 16, hoping to make it through to the afternoon quarterfinals.
Australians Fejes/Milutinovic, who claimed gold without dropping a set to their respective rivals at the last week’s AVC Beach Tour Nuvali Open in Philippines, struggled to beat Japanese Ren Matsumoto/Non Matsumoto in hard-fought three-setter 21-18, 17-21, 15-13 in the round of 16.
The Aussies continued their brilliant performance in the quarterfinals to see off Kazakhstan’s Laura Kabulbekova/Nadezhda Ivanchenko 2-0 (21-10, 21-19) for a slot in the semifinals, where Fejes/Milutinovic are expected…
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