Cannon & Kraft, Nuss & Kloth, Stam & Schoon secure top six spots in Doha

Terese Cannon & Megan Kraft, Kristen Nuss & Taryn Kloth and Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon were the first teams to book their spots in the Doha Finals playoffs. Whether they will advance straight to the semifinals or move on to the quarterfinals, and who are the other three teams to join them will be decided in the last pool matches on Friday.

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Pool A

On Thursday, eighth-seeded Americans Cannon & Kraft achieved their third victory in Pool A, but this time they were pushed to a tie-breaker by fifth-seeded Xue Chen & Xia Xinyi of China. In an even game and despite an impressive 27-point match high from Xia, the US duo emerged with a 2-1 (21-15, 14-21, 15-12) win. Cannon & Kraft stand on top of the Pool A standings as the only team to have collected three victories so far.

Xue & Xia are second on a 2-1 win-loss record. Earlier on Thursday, the Chinese pair played another three-set match, but this time came out on the winning end, 2-1 (22-20, 15-21, 15-13) against Italian wild cards Valentina Gottardi & Reka Orsi Toth. Each of the four players in the match reached 20+ points, but Gottardi made a solid performance on the block with seven stuffs.

Fourth-seeded Brazilians Agatha Bednarczuk & Rebecca Cavalcanti achieved their first victory in Doha, a 2-0 (21-16, 21-11) shutout of top-seeded Latvians Tina Graudina & Anastasija Samoilova, with a 22-point match high from Rebecca. Later in the day, however, they lost their last pool match to Gottardi & Orsi Toth, also in straight sets, 2-0 (21-15, 21-17), and finished their Pool A campaign on 1-3.

Whether or not this was the last match of Agatha’s glorious professional career as a player will be known on Friday, when Tina & Anastasija and Gottardi & Orsi Toth will be looking for their second wins against Xue & Xia and Cannon & Kraft, respectively.

Pool B

Sixth-seeded Americans Nuss & Kloth and third-seeded Stam & Schoon of the Netherlands mastered two straight-set wins each on Thursday and secured advancement to the playoffs.

The Americans started their day with an emphatic 2-0 (21-11, 21-11) shutout of Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallists Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson of Canada, sharing the top scorer honours with 12 points apiece. Then Nuss put away a match-high 19 points towards a 2-0 (21-18, 21-18) victory over Spanish Olympians Daniela Alvarez & Tania Moreno and the American duo stayed undefeated in three matches played so far.

Stam & Schoon finished their pool matches and also collected three wins to secure a spot among the top two in the pool. In their first match on Thursday, the Dutch hammered out a 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) win over second-seeded Germans Svenja Muller & Cinja Tillmann. While Schoon impressed with six aces, Stam raised five kill blocks towards a match-high 16 points. Stam & Schoon produced a 2-0 (21-16, 21-18) sweep of their last match in the pool against ninth-seeded Melissa & Brandie, with a 21-point match high from Stam.

Friday’s race for the third place in the pool will be decided in the matches between Muller & Tillmann (currently third on 1-2) and Nuss & Kloth, and between Melissa & Brandie (also on 1-2) and winless Alvarez & Moreno.

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