Domonkos Doczi & Bence Attila Streli earned their first Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour medal by topping the podium at the Qingdao Futures on Sunday. It was not only Hungary’s second Beach Pro Tour medal for the weekend, after their compatriots Boldizsar Borbely & Lukas Niemeier claimed silver at the Bujumbura Futures on Saturday, but also Hungary’s first Beach Pro Tour gold ever. Australia’s Joshua Howat & Luke Ryan and Thailand’s Netitorn Muneekul & Poravid Taovato completed the men’s podium in China, while home pairs Wang Jingzhe & Mushajiang Aheidan and Jiang Kaiyue & Yu Tong, and Japan’s Asami Shiba & Chika Nakagawa, in that order, took the women’s gold, silver and bronze.
Beach Pro Tour
Doczi & Streli win Qingdao to mark historic success for Hungary
Teams from Australia, Thailand, Japan and the host nation also medal at the Futures event in China
Published 06:43, 16 Sept 2024
Happy Doczi & Streli (source: hunvolley.hu)
21-year-old Doczi and 23-year-old Streli, seeded 12th in the Qingdao main draw, pushed their way through the tournament on a five-game winning streak, but in three of their matches, including the last two, they had to come back from a set down before winning in the tie-breakers. In their semifinal against fourth-seeded home pair Wang Yanwei & Du Hongjun, the Hungarians managed a 2-1 (15-21, 21-16, 15-12) win, and in the gold medal showdown, they persevered through an epic 2-1 (23-25, 21-18, 18-16) saga to edge 11th-seeded Joshua Howat & Luke Ryan for the trophy. It was the pair’s first ever gold and first ever podium on the Beach Pro Tour. With another partner, Streli took a Cervia Futures silver last year.
It was only the second Beach Pro Tour appearance for the Australian pairing of 22-year-old Joshua Howat and 19-year-old Luke Ryan, but they celebrated their first podium, both as a team and individually. They started their Qingdao campaign from the qualification grind, but lined up six straight-set wins in a row to reach the final. In their semifinal, the Australians produced a 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) victory over second-seeded Netitorn Muneekul & Poravid Taovato.
22-year-old Netitorn and 23-year-old Poravid bounced back from their semifinal loss with a 2-0 (21-14, 21-11) sweep of the third place match against Wang & Du to pick up the duo’s first Beach Pro Tour medal. Poravid already had a gold and a silver from a previous partnership.
27-year-old Wang Jingzhe, who managed to win gold at five of her six appearances on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour in 2019 along with Wen Shuhui, now celebrated her first Beach Pro Tour gold as she and 23-year-old Mushajiang Aheidan topped the podium at Qingdao 2024. It was the first world-level medal for the latter. The fourth-seeded Chinese team went through the tournament on a merciless run of five consecutive victories without dropping a single set. They mastered a 2-0 (21-15, 21-17) sweep of their semifinal against 15th-seeded Asami Shiba & Chika Nakagawa and followed up with a 2-0 (23-21, 21-17) victory in the all-Chinese final against 19-year-old Jiang Kaiyue & Yu Tong.
Interestingly, sixth-seeded Jiang & Yu, who started their quest for the podium from the qualifications, reached the final on a series of five consecutive wins, but as many as three of them came on injury forfeits by other Chinese opponents, including the semifinal against 11th-seeded qualifiers Han Wenqin & Qi Siyu. It was the pair’s second Futures silver in a row after they finished runners-up in Qidong a week earlier. For Yu, it was even the third consecutive silver medal as she also finished second at May’s Qingshan Futures with a different partner.
28-year-old Shiba, on the other hand, earned her second back-to-back (and overall third) bronze a week after she and Saki Maruyama finished third in Qidong. This time in a tandem with 29-year-old Nakagawa, Shiba made the podium again after a 2-1 (17-21, 21-16, 15-13) comeback in the bronze medal match against Han & Qi. It was the first Beach Pro Tour medal in Nakagawa’s career.
27 men’s and 23 women’s teams representing a total of 15 different countries took part in the Qingdao Futures. This week’s Beach Pro Tour schedule offers another two Futures events, a women’s tournament in Castellon de la Plana, Spain from September 18 to 22, and a double-gender competition in Balikesir, Türkiye from September 19 to 23.
