The third Futures event on the 2025 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour was held in Thailand with USA’s Alaina Chacon & Morgan Chacon claiming their second consecutive gold on the women’s side and Israel’s Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov topping the men’s podium. Austrian stars Alexander Huber & Robin Seidl and home favorites Dunwinit Kaewsai & Banlue Nakprakhong finished first and second runners-up in the men’s tournament in Songkhla, while the women’s silver and bronze went to Japan’s Ren Matsumoto & Non Matsumoto and China’s Yu Tong & Jiang Kaiyue, respectively.
Futures - Songkhla, THA - 2025
Chacon & Chacon and Elazar & Cuzmiciov snatch Futures golds in Thailand
Teams from Japan, China, Austria and Thailand also make the podiums in Songkhla
Published 10:45, 14 Apr 2025
Fifth-seeded Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov cruised through the tournament on a run of five consecutive wins, dropping only a set along the way to their first Beach Pro Tour gold as a team. Of the two players, only Elazar had once topped a podium on the Tour before with a different partner. Together, the Israeli pair had previously collected two silver medals, at the 2023 Corigliano Rossano Futures and at the 2024 Brussels Futures. In the Songkhla semifinals, Elazar & Cuzmiciov put together a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) victory over fourth-seeded Germans Momme Lorenz & Tilo Rietschel, and then they mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-18) sweep of the final against Austrian Olympians Alexander Huber & Robin Seidl.
39-year-old Huber and 35-year-old Seidl, who last competed together at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games together before reuniting for the start of the 2025 season, decorated their Beach Pro Tour debut as a duo with silver. They crowned their four-game winning streak in Songkhla with a 2-0 (21-18, 24-22) semifinal win over top-seeded Dunwinit Kaewsai & Banlue Nakprakhong of Thailand.
The home team bounced back with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-17) shutout of Lorenz & Rietschel in the third place game to pick up the bronze, the pair’s second Beach Pro Tour medal, after the Qidong Futures silver last year.
Alaina Chacon & Morgan Chacon made it to their third consecutive podium at their fourth Beach Pro Tour appearance as a team, after the Mount Maunganui Futures bronze and the Coolangatta Futures gold in March. The seventh-seeded Americans had to take the detour route to the Songkhla women’s gold after losing the Pool B final. In the knockouts, they started with three straight-set wins, including a 2-0 (21-19, 21-11) sweep of their semifinal against 11th-seeded Salinda Mungkhon & Samitta Simarongnam of Thailand. In the gold medal showdown, however, Chacon & Chacon had a tight three-set battle with eighth-seeded Ren Matsumoto & Non Matsumoto. The Japanese opponents pushed them deep into overtime in the tie-breaker, before the American duo could triumph with a 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 20-18) victory.
Ren & Non matched their result from the 2022 Songkhla Futures when they earned their only previous Beach Pro Tour podium. To secure the team’s second silver on the Tour, the Japanese produced four back-to-back wins in Thailand, crowned with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) semifinal victory over Yu Tong & Jiang Kaiyue.
Seeded fifth in the main draw, the pair of 20-year-old Chinese athletes picked up the bronze, their third Beach Pro Tour medal as a team, after the Qidong and Qingdao Futures silvers last year. In the third place match, Yu & Jiang battled it out for a 2-1 (24-22, 22-24, 15-8) victory over Salinda & Samitta.
28 men’s teams and 28 women’s teams representing 24 different countries took part in the Songkhla Futures. The next Futures events will be held in Valencia, Spain from April 30 to May 4 and in Nuvali, Philippines from May 1 to 4.
