Roi Et, Thailand, September 10, 2022 – Hosts Thailand, Japan, China and Australia all sealed comfortable wins in their respective pools on the opening day of the inaugural AVC Beach Tour Roi Et Open at the competition site at Ban Nong Ya Ma Community School here on Saturday.
The three-day tournament kicked off its pool round-robin preliminaries on Saturday. Top seeds and defending Asian champions Worapeerachayakorn Kongphopsarutawadee/Tarawadee Naraphornrapat of Thailand got off to a victorious start with 21-12, 21-11 win against Vietnamese 17th-seeds Nguyen Lan Vu Ngoc/Nguyen Le Thi Tuong Vy in Pool A.
The Thai duo will next take on Philippines 16th-seeds Floremel Rodriguez/Genesa Jane Eslapor. After going down 17-21, 11-21 to the Vietnamese tandem on Saturday, the Filipinas will play Worapeerachayakorn/Tarawadee with their backs against wall in a must-win match on Sunday. Another loss to the superb Thai duo means their elimination from the tournament.
Thailand’s Suchinna Choemphun/Apinya Saengpaeng, silver medallists at the last year’s Asian U21 Championships jn Nakhon Pathom and also the Asian U19 Championships at the same venue here in Roi Et early this year, had a little problem against Lok Yingkiu/Ng Wing Lamm to beat the Hong Kong China’s pairing 21-18, 21-15 in their opening clash in Pool C. The Thai girls will next challenge Chinese third seeds Lin Meimei/Xia Xinyi, who also outplayed the Hong Kong China’s duo 21-8,, 21-12 on the same day.
Japanese second seeds Miki Ishii/Sayaka Mizoe, silver medallists at the last year’s Asian Championships in Phuket, made a solid start in this competition to mercilessly crush Singaporeans Alicia Tan/Sharon Beh in a totally one-sided battle 21-6, 21-5 in Pool B.
Another Japanese pairing, Akiko Hasegawa/Yurika Sakaguchi, also made their mark in their first encounter against Hsu Yuchi/Sheng Tzuhsuan to see off the Chinese Taipei’s duo in a lopsided affair 21-7, 21-7 in Pool E.
In Pool F, Australians Nicole Laird/Phoebe Bell proved too strong for San Pinsin/Chong Yanyu to overwhelm the Malaysians in comfortable straight sets 21-9, 21-5. San/Chong later succumbed to their second loss in the tournament when they went down 9-21, 12-21 to New Zealanders Olivia Macdonald/Jasmine Milton on the same day.
The Kiwis will next go up against the Australians on Sunday. However, following two losses of Malaysians San/Chong on Saturday, both Australians and New Zealanders, win or lose in their Sunday’s…
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