Germans earn their maximum in Nayarit women’s pool play

The four German teams competing in the Nayarit Challenge women’s main draw on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour in Mexico reached their best possible results in Thursday’s pool play, with the only damages they conceded coming from “friendly fire”. Thus, three of them won their pools and joined another five teams with direct tickets to the second elimination round, the eighthfinals, while the fourth one finished pool runner-up and moved on to the sixteenthfinal round along with the remaining second and third-placed teams.

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Pool H featured two German duos and they both upset higher seeds in their opening matches before facing one another in the pool final. Mareet Maidhof & Tabea Schwarz, seeded 25^th in the 32-team main draw, started off with a 2-1 (18-21, 21-14, 15-11) victory over eighth-seeded Mexican home favorites Susana Torres & Atenas Gutierrez. It was an even closer battle in the other pool semifinal, in which 24^th-seeded Rika Dieckmann & Paula Schurholz surprised ninth-seeded Ren Matsumoto & Non Matsumoto of Japan with a nail-biting 2-1 (25-23, 15-21, 19-17) win, despite an impressive six serving aces from Ren. The all-German pool final went 2-0 (21-10, 23-21) the way of Maidhof & Schwarz, while Ren & Non knocked Torres & Gutierrez out of contention to stay alive in the tournament.

22^nd-seeded Germans Chenoa Christ & Sophia Neuss capitalized on Romanians Francesca Alupei & Beata Vaida’s injury withdrawal to move on to the final in Pool F, where they produced a dramatic 2-1 (10-21, 21-17, 17-15) comeback win over sixth-seeded Emi van Driel & Mila Konink of the Netherlands. The third-place went to Argentina’s Agnes Michel Tosi & Brenda Churin.

German bracket leaders Lea Kunst & Melanie Paul lived up to their status and topped the final standings in Pool A. First, they mastered a 2-0 (21-10, 21-12) shutout of Brazil’s Alessandra Rezende Jardim & Priscila Lima de Aragao (Pity) with the help of as many as eight aces. Then, they were forced to a tie-breaker by USA’s Madelyne Anderson & Alaina Chacon, but managed to claim a 2-1 (21-13, 20-22, 15-13) victory. Alessandra & Pity took third place in the pool.

Pool G was particularly hard-fought and interesting, with all four matches decided in tie-breakers. In the pool final, seventh-seeded Lithuanian Olympians Monika Paulikiene & Aine Raupelyte achieved a 2-1 (17-21, 21-14, 15-10) win over 10^th-seeded Anniina Parkkinen & Valma Prihti of Finland, with five aces from Paulikiene and five kill blocks and three aces from Raupelyte. In the third-place match, Poland’s Natalia Okla & Urszula Lunio celebrated a nerve-wracking 2-1 (19-21, 23-21, 19-17) survival win over Canada’s Darby Dunn & Alison McKay, despite the opponents’ eight aces in the match.

Third-seeded Verena Figueira & Thainara Feitosa of Brazil topped Pool C after a 2-1 (20-22, 21-18, 15-8) victory over Spain’s Ana Vergara & Sofia Gonzalez. Norway’s Sunniva Helland-Hansen & Nina Pavlova progressed as the third-placed team in the pool.

Fifth-seeded Australians Jasmine Fleming & Elizabeth Alchin suffered two upsets in Pool E and left the competition. In the pool winners’ match, 12^th-seeded Paraguayan Olympians Michelle Valiente & Giuliana Poletti Corrales beat Canada’s Kaylee Glagau & Abbey Thorup by 2-0 (21-17, 21-12), while USA’s Kamila Tan & Madison Shields finished third.

Second-seeded Asami Shiba & Reika Murakami put together a 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) sweep of the Pool B final against Estonia’s Heleene Hollas & Liisa Remmelg, who were joined by China’s Jiang Kaiyue & Dong Jie into the sixteenthfinals.

Another Chinese duo, fourth-seeded Yan Xu & Xia Xinyi, won Pool D after a 2-0 (21-16, 21-15) shutout of USA’s Natalie Myszkowski & Carly Kan, while Denmark’s Sofia Bisgaard & Cirkeline Hog picked up the third ticket from this pool to the knockouts.

Both the sixteenthfinals and the eighthfinals in the women’s competition are set to be played on Friday. The competition day will serve off at 14:00 local time (20:00 UTC).

Beach Pro Tour Nayarit Challenge: schedule and results

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