In the biggest upset of the first leg in men’s pool play at the Yucatan Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, Brazil’s Adelmo Folha & Mateus Dultra, who emerged from Wednesday’s qualifications and were seeded 30th in the 32-team main draw, shut out the number three seed, Italy’s Samuele Cottafava & Gianluca Dal Corso, in a Pool C match. Two more qualifying teams, Brazil’s Pedro Oliveira & Renato Lima and Switzerland’s Yves Haussener & Julian Friedli, also made victorious starts to their main draw campaigns in Puerto Progreso.
Beach Pro Tour
Qualifiers Adelmo & Mateus upset third-seeded Italians at start of Yucatan main draw
Pedro & Renato and Haussener & Friedli from Wednesday’s qualifications also win on Thursday in Mexico
Published 06:05, 21 Mar 2025
Brazil's Adelmo & Mateus
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Adelmo & Mateus capitalized on the abundant unforced errors the new Italian pairing committed to celebrate a 2-0 (21-16, 21-18) victory. The two Brazilians contributed 13 points each to the team’s success, with Mateus shining on the block with five stuffs. Also with five kill blocks to his name, Dal Corso emerged as the best scorer of the match with 20 points to his name. On Friday, Adelmo & Mateus will take on Latvia’s Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics for the first place in the final pool standings and a direct ticket to the eighthfinals, while Cottafava & Dal Corso will play against Czechia’s Jakub Sepka & Jiri Sedlak for the third place in the pool and survival in the tournament. The 19th-seeded Latvians beat the 14th-seeded Czechs by 2-0 (21-16, 21-12).
Pool B offered two three-set battles on Thursday. Second-seeded Chilean standouts Marco Grimalt & Esteban Grimalt spoiled the main draw debut of Italian star Alex Ranghieri’s new partnership with Manuel Alfieri with a 2-1 (15-21, 21-16, 15-11) comeback win. Ranghieri was on fire and produced a match-high 26 points, including five blocks and three aces, but the too many errors the Italian team made cost them the match. In the other Pool B match, USA’s Chaim Schalk & James Shaw achieved a 2-1 (21-16, 23-25, 15-9) victory over Argentina’s Juan Bautista Amieva & Maciel Bueno, with the help of an impressive eight kill blocks from Shaw.
Two tie-breakers decided the first Pool D matches as well. Fourth-seeded Ruben Penninga & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands came back from a set down against Swiss qualifiers Adrian Heidrich & Jonathan Jordan to register a 2-1 (14-21, 21-15, 19-17) win in the overtime of the third set, with Penninga raising three kill blocks in the tie-breaker alone. The Dutch duo’s next opponents, Frenchmen Remi Bassereau & Calvin Aye, turned the course of their opening game around to put together a 2-1 (13-21, 21-17, 15-11) victory over USA’s Tri Bourne & Evan Cory.
All the other men’s matches on Thursday were resolved in straight sets.
Top-seeded Cubans Noslen Diaz & Jorge Alayo beat USA’s Timothy Brewster & Ryan Ierna, while Austria’s Christoph Dressler & Philipp Waller shut out Germany’s Maximilian Just & Philipp Huster in Pool A.
The battle is on in Yucatan 🇲🇽! Meet the Top Seeds of the #BeachProTour Challenge Event 🌴
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An injury withdrawal by Brazil’s George Wanderley and Saymon Barbosa handed fifth-seeded world champions Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner of Czechia their first win of the season. In the other Pool E game, Gustavo Carvalhaes (Guto) & Vitor Felipe of Brazil defeated Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter of Germany.
In Pool F, sixth-seeded Olympians Miles Evans & Chase Budinger of the United States swept their game against Brazilian qualifiers Gabriel Santiago & Felipe Alves, but were pushed to overtime in the second set. After an extended first set, 22nd-seeded Canadians Samuel Schachter & Jonathan Pickett took out 11th-seeded Austrians Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger in straight sets.
Swiss qualifiers Haussener & Friedli continued their successful start in Yucatan with a Pool G upset of seventh-seeded Germans Lukas Pfretzschner & Sven Winter. They will now take on 23rd-seeded Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos of Portugal, who upset the other German team in the pool, 10th-seeded Paul Henning & Lui Wust.
Brazilian qualifiers Pedro & Renato faced few issues in their Pool H opener against eighth-seeded home wild cards Miguel Sarabia & Jorman Osuna of Mexico, while rising Swedish stars Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson shut out their French opponents Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat in the other game in the pool.
Men’s action in Puerto Progreso will resume on Friday at 09:00 local time (15:00 UTC).
