D'Artagnan Potts & Jack Pearse produced the first Australian victory at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships to delight the home crowd in Adelaide on Friday’s opening day of the sport’s premier event. Seeded 40^th in the 48-team men’s draw, Potts & Pearse stunned ninth-seeded Chaim Schalk & James Shaw of the United States in their Pool I match. At the end of the day, another Aussie duo, Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher, brought more joy to the home fans with an emphatic shutout of Morocco’s Ilyas Rhouni Lazaar & Soufiane El Gharouti.

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In a dramatic course of events, Potts & Pearse recovered from losing the first set of their opening game and won both of the next two sets in the overtime to celebrate a 2-1 (16-21, 24-22, 17-15) victory, after several Australian setbacks in both the men’s and the women’s tournaments earlier in the day.

The Aussies denied three opponent match points in set two to push the match to a tie-breaker and eventually win it on the fourth match point of their own. Pearse was the best scorer of the game with three aces and a kill block towards a match-high total of 24 points. Potts added two aces to finish with 21 points. Shaw also scored 21 times, including four times from the serving line and once on the block, while Schalk delivered 19 points, all in swings.

In the other Pool I match, another American duo, Miles Evans & Chase Budinger, claimed a 2-0 (21-16, 21-19) win over Ruben Penninga & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands to top the current pool standings.

In the closing match of the first competition day in Adelaide, Paris 2024 Olympians Nicolaidis & Carracher, the highest seeded Australian team in the men’s draw, cruised to a 2-0 (21-11, 21-12) sweep of their Pool L opener against Iliyas & El Gharouti. Nicolaidis fired five aces towards a match-high 20 points, while Carracher added 10 points, including a block. Iliyas was his side’s leading scorer with 14 points.

France’s Remi Bassereau & Calvin Aye outlasted Chile’s Marco Grimalt & Esteban Grimalt on the way to a 2-1 (21-15, 18-21, 15-12) win in the other Pool L first-leg game.

Another French team, Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, also started with a three-set victory, a 2-1 (17-21, 21-15, 15-9) turnaround against England’s Javier Bello & Joaquin Bello in Pool G. Sweden’s Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson took the lead in that pool after a speedy 2-0 (21-15, 21-8) shutout of Australia’s Ben Hood & Oliver Merritt.

In another Swedish-Australian duel, between reigning Olympic champions David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig and experienced Paul Burnett & Thomas Hodges in Pool C, the European side also dominated to master a 2-0 (21-8, 21-15) sweep in just 27 minutes of play. The much anticipated all-Brazilian clash in that pool went 2-0 (21-17, 21-19) the way of George Wanderley & Saymon Barbosa against Andre Stein & Renato Lima.

Pool E also had both first-leg matches resolved in straight sets, with Poland’s Michal Bryl & Bartosz Losiak hammering out a 2-0 (21-11, 21-19) victory over China’s Wang Yanwei & Du Hongjun, and Germany’s Lukas Pfretzschner & Sven Winter squeezing out a narrow 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) win over Austria’s Christoph Dressler & Philipp Waller.

The next match of the men’s pool stage at Adelaide 2025 will serve off on Saturday at 09:00 local time (22:30 UTC on Friday).

FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships: schedule and results

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