Huster & Pfretzschner win all-German men’s final
Nicole Laird & Brittany Kendall with the Satun Futures trophy
At their first appearance on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour after reuniting as a pair, Nicole Laird & Brittany Kendall claimed their first gold. The second-seeded Australian women’s team climbed on top of the podium at the Satun Futures in Thailand on Sunday, after losing an amazing 88-point set in the semifinals. In the men’s tournament, Philipp Huster & Simon Pfretzschner came out on top of a three-set all-German final against compatriots Paul Henning & Sven Winter.
Lithuania’s Ieva Vasiliauskaite & Erika Kliokmanaite and Czech qualifiers Valerie Dvornikova & Anna Pospisilova completed the women’s podium, while the men’s bronze went to French qualifiers Samuel Cattet & Olivier Barthelemy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bjxUeYCx20
After cruising through their first three main draw matches in Thailand without losing a set, 30-year-old Rio 2016 Olympian Laird, who had previously medalled on the Beach Pro Tour once, with a silver at the first-ever Futures event last year at home in Coolangatta alongside Phoebe Bell, and 27-year-old Kendall finished their Satun campaign with two three-set matches.
Having mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-15) shutout of home pair Varapatsorn Radarong & Tanarattha Udomchavee in Saturday’s quarterfinals, the second-seeded Aussies started their semifinal against Dvornikova & Pospisilova on Sunday with a rarely seen epic set that lasted 88 rallies or 46 minutes, which they eventually lost by 45-43. Laird & Kendall then battled back to win the match by 2-1 (43-45, 21-15, 15-10) and advance to the final. They had to come back from a set down in the game for the gold, but did so emphatically to celebrate a 2-1 (12-21, 21-14, 15-9) victory over Vasiliauskaite & Kliokmanaite.
The eighth-seeded Lithuanians had started their main draw campaign with a loss and taken the long way to the final, but made it there after adding three more wins to their victory for the third place in Pool A. They delivered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) sweep of fifth-seeded Asami Shiba & Saki Maruyama of Japan in the eighthfinals and followed up with a 2-0 (21-15, 21-18) quarterfinal upset of third-seeded Vanuatuans Majabelle Lawac & Sherysyn Toko. In Sunday’s semifinal, Vasiliauskaite & Kliokmanaite came back from a set down against Indonesia’s Dhita Juliana & Desi Ratnasari to claim a hard-fought narrow 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 23-21) victory….
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