As many as four of the teams, who made their way to the women’s main draw at the Xiamen Challenge from Wednesday’s qualifications, went on to cruise undefeated through Thursday’s pool stage and win their pools. So Ukraine’s Yeva Serdiuk & Daria Romaniuk, USA’s Savannah Simo & Abby Van Winkle, Germany’s Linda Bock & Louisa Lippmann and France’s Lezana Placette & Alexia Richard were among the teams that advanced directly to the eighthfinals of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour tournament in China, skipping the first knockout round.
Challenge - Xiamen, CHN - 2025
Four teams storm from women’s qualifiers to winning pools in Xiamen
All eight pool leaders suffer upsets
Published 02:11, 15 May 2025
USA’s Savannah Simo & Abby Van Winkle
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Serdiuk & Romaniuk, seeded in number 32 at the very bottom of the main draw bracket, started their Pool A campaign with a huge 2-0 (21-18, 21-16) upset of top-seeded home favorites Xue Chen & Zeng Jinjin. After defeating the team of four-time Olympian and Beijing 2008 bronze medalist Xue, the Ukrainians had to face the team of another Olympic medalist, Tokyo 2020 runner-up and three-time Olympian Taliqua Clancy’s pairing with Jana Milutinovic. They put together another straight-set victory, 2-0 (21-18, 21-15), over the 16th-seeded Australians to top the final pool standings. Clancy & Milutinovic, as well as third-placed Taravadee Naraphornrapat & Woranatchayakorn Phirachayakrailert of Thailand, who also beat Xue & Zeng in the pool’s losers match, progressed to the sixteenthfinals.
In Pool D, 29th-seeded Savvy & Van Winkle first achieved a hard-fought 2-1 (21-14, 18-21, 15-10) upset of fourth-seeded Australians Elizabeth Alchin & Georgia Johnson, and then mastered a 2-0 (21-16, 21-15) shutout of 13th-seeded American compatriots Toni Rodriguez & Kylie Kuyava-De Berg for the first place in the pool. Alchin & Johnson beat Spain’s Belen Carro & Paula Soria for the third place.
German qualifiers Bock & Lippmann, seeded 24th, delivered two upsets to win Pool H. They started with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) win over ninth-seeded Asami Shiba & Reika Murakami of Japan and followed up with a nail-biting 2-1 (21-15, 15-21, 20-18) victory over eighth-seeded Devon Newberry & Jaden Whitmarsh of the United States. Another team from the qualification grind, Canada’s Marie-Alex Belanger & Lea Monkhouse, also upset the Japanese duo to knock them out of contention and move on to the sixteenthfinals.
Placette & Richard, who received the highest seed in the main draw among the qualifiers, topped the Pool B standings. The 18th-seeded French Olympians started off with a 2-1 (14-21, 21-16, 15-10) turnaround against 15th-seeded Americans Deahna Kraft & Xolani Hodel. In the pool winners match against second-seeded Xia Xinyi & Wang Jingzhe, Placette & Richard were leading by 1-0 in sets and 2-0 in points in the second set, when their Chinese opponents were forced to withdraw for medical reasons. Kraft & Hodel finished third in the pool after knocking out fellow Americans Piper Ferch & Madison Shields.
In fact, all pool leaders suffered upsets in their pools and some of them, like Xue & Zeng, even finished bottom of the standings and failed to advance to the elimination rounds.
German qualifiers Lea Kunst & Melanie Paul surprised fifth-seeded Australians Jasmine Fleming & Stefanie Fejes with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-17) shutout in their first Pool E game. The pool was won by 12th-seeded Cao Shuting & Dong Jie of China, who beat Kunst & Paul in a nerve-wracking 2-1 (19-21, 21-19, 18-16) comeback in the final. Finland’s Taru Lahti-Liukkonen & Niina Ahtiainen beat the Aussies in three sets to take third place and knock the pool leaders out of contention.
Seventh-seeded Valentyna Davidova & Anhelina Khmil of Ukraine also failed to get past their Pool G. 26th-seeded Clemence Vieira & Aline Chamereau of France squeezed out a tight 2-1 (27-25, 21-23, 15-12) victory over the Ukrainians and went on to hammer out a 2-0 (21-8, 21-15) shutout of 23rd-seeded Charanrutwadee Patcharamainaruebhorn & Woranatchayakorn Phirachayakrailert of Thailand in the pool final. China’s Yan Xu & Zhou Mingli shut out Davidova & Khmil in the pool’s third-place game.
Poland’s Malgorzata Ciezkowska & Urszula Lunio, seeded 14th, topped the table in Pool C after persevering through two tough three-setters – first, a 2-1 (21-18, 14-21, 20-18) win over Japan’s Saki Maruyama & Miki Ishii, and then, a 2-1 (22-20, 19-21, 15-10) upset of third-seeded Julia Scoles & Lexy Denaburg of the United States. Maruyama & Ishii knocked out Chinese wild cards Yu Tong & Jiang Kaiyue in the third-place game.
22nd-seeded Americans Brook Bauer & Madelyne Anderson broke the seeding in Pool F with straight-set wins over 11th-seeded Noa Sonneville & Brecht Piersma of the Netherlands in the first leg, 2-0 (21-13, 21-17), and over sixth-seeded Marketa Svozilova & Marie-Sara Stochlova of Czechia in the second, 2-0 (21-17, 21-17). The third place went to Lithuanian qualifiers Daniele Kvedaraite & Jekaterina Kovalskaja.
Women’s main draw action in Xiamen will resume on Friday with the sixteenthfinal round, starting at 11:00 local time (03:00 UTC).
