The first leg of the men’s pool stage at the Haikou Challenge on the 2024 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour produced several upsets on Thursday. As many as four of the teams that emerged from Wednesday’s qualifiers – USA’s Evan Cory & Cody Caldwell, France’s Joadel Genevieve-Gardoque & Elouan Chouikh-Barbez, Norway’s Markus Mol & Adrian Mol and Germany’s Momme Lorenz & Tilo Rietschel – continued their winning runs and defeated main-draw-seeded teams to secure their spots in the elimination rounds.

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The newly formed American duo of Evan Cory & Cody Caldwell, seeded 16^th in the main draw, qualified for the winners’ match in Pool D with a tight 2-1 (18-21, 23-21, 15-13) comeback against the ninth-seeded pairing of French Olympian Remi Bassereau with Calvin Aye. Caldwell raised five kill blocks towards a 25-point match high. On Friday, the US team will take on fourth-seeded Gianluca Dal Corso & Marco Viscovich of Italy for a direct ticket to the second elimination round, while Bassereau & Aye will fight for survival with Chinese wild cards Liu Chuanyong & Liu Jinqiu.

In Pool E, 17^th-seeded Genevieve Gardoque & Chouikh claimed a 2-0 (22-20, 21-17) win over eighth-seeded Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics of Latvia with a 19-point match high from Chouikh. The French pair will now face fifth-seeded Americans Chaim Schalk & James Shaw for the top of the final pool standings.

Two of Norwegian star Anders Mol’s younger brothers, 22-year-old Markus Mol and 20-year-old Adrian Mol, playing in the first Challenge-level main draw, also started off with a win. The 19^th-seeded Norwegians hammered out a 2-0 (21-14, 21-9) shutout of sixth-seeded home favourites Wang Yanwei & Du Hongjun with the help of five aces and two kill blocks within a match-high 18 points from Markus. Next, the Mols will take on seventh-seeded Hagen Smith & Logan Webber of the United States in a direct duel for advancement to the last 12 of the tournament.

23^rd-seeded Momme Lorenz & Tilo Rietschel authored arguably the biggest upset on Thursday, downing second-seeded D'Artagnan Potts & Jack Pearse of Australia in a 2-1 (21-17, 18-21, 18-16) nail-biter. The Germans will fight for the first pace in Pool B with 11^th-seeded Austrians Laurenc Grossig & Paul Pascariuc.

Top-seeded Thomas Hodges & Zachery Schubert of Australia will meet 12^th-seeded Vinicius Freitas & Heitor Barbosa of Brazil for the first place in Pool A, while an all-German clash between third-seeded Philipp Huster & Maximilian Just and 15^th-seeded Paul Henning & Lui Wust shaped up for the top of Pool C.

Haikou Challenge men’s action will resume on Friday morning at 09:00 local time (01:00 UTC) with the survival matches for the third places in the pools, followed by the pool winners’ games.

VW Beach Pro Tour Haikou Challenge: schedule and results

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