Durish & Koenig against Shiba & Reika in Sunday’s Bhubaneswar Challenge final

In an all-American semifinal, ninth-seeded Alexis Durish & Audrey Koenig denied top-seeded Sara Hughes & Allysa Batenhorst a quintuple match point in the tie-breaker to sprint to the finish line with an impressive run of seven points in a row and advance to the women’s final of the Bhubaneswar Challenge on the 2026 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour at their first ever appearance at such a high-level international tournament. It is overall Durish & Koenig’s third appearance on the Beach Pro Tour and after claiming a gold and a bronze at the Futures level, they have now secured their third podium finish, this time in a Challenge event. In Sunday’s final, they will take on second-seeded Asami Shiba & Reika Murakami of Japan, while Hughes & Batehhorst will battle for bronze with another US pair, 13^th-seeded Natalie Myszkowski & Carly Kan.

• Watch the Bhubaneswar Challenge on VBTV

Saturday’s women’s program in India offered the quarterfinal and the semifinal matches. Alexis Durish & Audrey Koenig started their day with a 2-0 (21-14, 21-15) upset of third-seeded Yan Xu & Xia Xinyi of China. 22-year-old Koenig fired five aces and raised two kill blocks towards a match-high 18 points, while 21-year-old Durish added another 13 points towards the victory.

Then, it was the big match against 2023 world champion Sara Hughes and her current partner Allysa Batenhorst. The bracket leaders came back from a set down to level the match and reached out for their first final with a 14-9 lead in the tie-breaker. However, Durish & Koenig mounted a furious turnaround and grabbed a 2-1 (21-17, 13-21, 16-14) victory. Koenig once again led the team with 25 points, including five kill blocks and an ace. Durish chipped in with another 18. Batenhorst emerged as the best scorer of the match with a 27-point tally, featuring four stuffs.

Hughes & Batenhorst played three sets in their quarterfinal match too. They managed to take revenge from Ukraine’s Yeva Serdiuk & Sofiia Kurnikova for the loss they conceded in pool with a 2-1 (21-16, 18-21, 15-12) win, with a match-high 25 points from 23-year-old Batenhorst.

For the other finalists, Japan’s Asami Shiba & Reika Murakami, the quarterfinal was the more dramatic match. They had to come back from a set down against trending Romanians Beata Vaida & Francesca Alupei, seeded seventh, to pull off a 2-1 (18-21, 21-19, 15-11) win. The two Japanese athletes contributed 21 points each, with 29-year-old Reika delivering five kill blocks and three aces and 30-year-old Shiba firing four direct serving points, while Alupei topped the chart with 26 points, including five stuffs and two aces.

Shiba & Reika went on to produce a 2-0 (22-20, 21-12) straight-setter in their semifinal against USA’s Natalie Myszkowski & Carly Kan and progressed to their first-ever Challenge final. Shiba, Myszkowski and Kan scored 13 points each, while Reika signed off with 12.

In their quarterfinal, Myszkowski & Kan took out another Japanese duo, sixth-seeded Ren Matsumoto & Non Matsumoto, in straight sets, 2-0 (22-20, 21-16), with a match-high 18 points from Kan.

Sunday’s women’s bronze medal game will serve off at 11:00 local time (05:30 UTC). The gold medal showdown is set to start at 16:00 (10:30).

Beach Pro Tour Bhubaneswar Challenge: schedule and results

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