Coolangatta, Australia - Future - Beach Pro Tour 2022 - News

Coolangatta, Australia

Kloth & Nuss, Carracher & Nicolaidis claim historic Futures trophies

Australians, Americans and Canadians make the Coolangatta podium

Published 09:47, 03 Apr 2022

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Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss celebrate their Coolangatta victory

24-year-old Americans Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss made an amazing run from the first qualification round all the way through the women’s final to claim the first ever Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures gold and top the podium at their international debut. One of the host country teams, eighth-seeded Izac Carracher and Mark Nicolaidis, snatched the men’s trophy at the historic tournament in Coolangatta, Australia.

Top seeds Nicole Laird and Phoebe Bell of Australia and ninth-seeded Toni Rodriguez and Susannah Muno of USA completed the women’s podium. The men’s silver and bronze went to ninth-seeded Canadians Jake MacNeil and Alexander Russell and fourth-seeded Aussies Thomas Hodges and Maximilian Guehrer, respectively.

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Izac Carracher and Mark Nicolaidis celebrate

Kloth and Nuss started the tournament as the lowest seeded team in the women’s qualifiers. They went through two straight-set victories to make the main draw and continued their impeccable run to the final without losing a single set along the way. In the gold medal match, the American pair went against Laird and Bell, whom they had already shut out once, in their opening Pool A match. The home team took the first set and that was the first, and as it turned out the only, damage Kloth and Nuss suffered throughout the tournament. They bounced back emphatically to claim the next two and celebrate with a 2-1 (19-21, 21-9, 15-7) victory.

“This has been a whirlwind of a trip for us and an awesome end result for Taryn and me. It was our first event of the season and we were just super excited to get out here and play. All throughout AVP, we kind of came through the qualifiers, so we’d done the grind before. The Aussies are a fantastic team, and this is their home court so they had more of a motivating factor there. There was a lot of wind out there, so we just had to manage on the bad side, and execute on the better side. So we were just focused on that and we’re really happy to get the win.” Kristen Nuss (USA)

For Bell and Laird, it was the second world-level medal as a team. Previously, they had taken the bronze at the 2017 Shepparton 1-star tournament.

While Susannah Muno had some previous international experience on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, including a 2021 Leuven 1-star gold, for her partner Toni Rodriguez, the Coolangatta Futures was the first world-level participation. The 25-year-old Americans took the bronze after a hard-fought 2-0 (24-22, 21-17) win over seventh-seeded Suzuka Hashimoto and Reika Murakami of Japan.

Carracher and Nicolaidis’s winning streak, which started in Pool A of the men’s main draw and included a 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) shutout of top-seeded Austrians Maximilian Trummer and Felix Friedl, brought the Aussies to Sunday’s gold medal match, where they mastered a 2-0 (21-11, 21-16) victory over MacNeil and Russell to triumph with their first world-level trophy. 21-year-old Nicolaidis had some previous appearances on the World Tour, while his 22-year-old teammate Carracher made his world-level debut in Coolangatta.

“We’ve been working really hard back in South Australia, and doing all the work in the lead up to make sure we can put together tournament after tournament. It’s really rewarding to see some of that progress that we’ve been able to make over the last few months pay off.” Mark Nicolaidis (Australia)
“We came up against a really tough Canadian side, we played them in the first round of pool play in some really tough conditions as well. We know their blocker Alex is a big boy, and their defender Jake is an absolute machine, so we knew we had to bring our A-game, and be really strong on the service line. Mark absolutely brought it in that facet of the game, so our defence came easy and we just needed to side out to get the win. To be able to get the gold, in front of a home crowd here at Coolangatta is pretty awesome.” Izac Carracher (Australia)

For the more experienced Canadians, 28-year-old Russell and 25-year-old MacNeil, the Coolangatta silver was also the first world-level medal of their careers.

25-year-old Maximilian Guehrer had previously won a 2018 Ljubljana Winter Edition 1-star bronze. In Coolangatta, he claimed his second world-level medal after a 2-0 (21-13, 21-18) shutout of second-seeded Poles Jakub Zdybek and Pawel Lewandowski in the third place match, this time in partnership with 27-year-old Thomas Hodges, who had played on the World Tour only once, back in 2018.

All Coolangatta Futures results

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