Futures - Pingtan, CHN - 2026

Chinese domination at Pingtan Futures

Home teams pick up four medals, duos from Brazil and USA also make the podiums in China

Published 04:33, 10 Aug 2026

Home teams from China dominated at the Pingtan Futures on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, collecting as many as four of the six podium spots available. Jiang Kaiyue & Zhou Mingli and Yu Tong & Aheidan Mushajiang took gold and silver in the women’s tournament, with USA’s Katie Horton & Jordan Boulware completing the podium. On the men’s side, Wu Jiaxin & Zhou Chaowei and Liu Yuan & Mao Yuan claimed gold and bronze, while Brazil’s Joaquim Brandao (Juca) & Lucas Sotelle brought home silver.

After winning the Qidong Futures a week earlier, 21-year-old Jiang Kaiyue & Zhou Mingli picked up their second Beach Pro Tour gold as a team. The bracket leaders prevailed in Pingtan and did not drop a single set in five matches played to top the podium. In an all-Chinese semifinal against 14^th-seeded wild cards Wei Luoqian & Chen Yingshan, Jiang & Zhou achieved a 2-0 (21-19, 21-9) sweep, and in an all-Chinese final against fourth-seeded Yu Tong & Aheidan Mushajiang, they mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-15) victory to triumph as gold medalists.

Yu & Aheidan also reached the final without losing any sets in the four matches played along the way. In their semifinal, they managed a 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) win over American qualifiers Katie Horton & Jordan Boulware to secure the team’s first Beach Pro Tour podium.

Horton & Boulware, seeded 16^th in the 16-team main draw, earned the bronze after beating Wei & Chen by 2-0 (24-22, 21-13) in the third-place playoff. The US pair played as many as eight matches in Pingtan, winning six of them on the way to 21-year-old Boulware’s first Beach Pro Tour medal at her second appearance.

Wu Jiaxin & Zhou Chaowei, the top seeds in the men’s tournament, also cruised through the competition undefeated, but were forced to tie-breaker resolutions in the last three of the five matches played in Pingtan. In their semifinal against 16^th-seeded qualifiers Taito Mizumachi & Kota Kurosawa of Japan, they managed a 2-1 (19-21, 21-17, 15-12) turnaround, and in the gold medal showdown against 15^th-seeded qualifiers Joaquim Brandao (Juca) & Lucas Sotelle of Brazil, the home favorites once again came back from a set down to celebrate a narrow 2-1 (20-22, 21-14, 17-15) victory and their team’s first Beach Pro Tour gold, after two bronzes.

That final result interrupted the perfect run of six straight-set wins the 19-year-old Brazilians lined up on the way to the gold medal showdown. Juca & Lucas secured their first Beach Pro Tour podium after a 2-0 (21-19, 21-17) shutout of sixth-seeded Liu Yuan & Mao Yuan of China in the semis.

18-year-old Liu and 20-year-old Mao grabbed the bronze, their first medal on the Tour, after a 2-0 (21-11, 21-17) sweep of the third-place game against Mizumachi & Kurosawa.