With the pool placement matches and the sixteenthfinal playoff round played on Friday, the eighthfinal match-ups for Saturday have been lined up in the men’s tournament at the Xiamen Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. Three teams each from Austria and Switzerland, two each from Italy and USA and one each from Australia, France, Israel, Norway, Portugal and Qatar are still in contention for the podium spots in China, among them four duos, who started their campaigns from Wednesday’s qualifications.
Challenge - Xiamen, CHN - 2025
Men’s eighthfinal match-ups set in Xiamen
Four teams from the qualifications still in contention
Published 12:38, 16 May 2025
USA’s Tri Bourne & Evan Cory
- Watch the Xiamen Challenge on VBTV
25th-seeded Adrian Heidrich & Jonathan Jordan were the only qualifiers to win their pool. In Friday’s Pool H final, they squeezed out a tight 2-0 (22-20, 23-21) win over ninth-seeded Austrians Alexander Horst & Paul Pascariuc. The Swiss team will next meet another Austrian pair in the eighthfinals, Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger, who came through the sixteenthfinals after finishing third in Pool D. Another Swiss pair, 24th-seeded Marco Krattiger & Leo Dillier, also from the qualifiers, took third place in the same Pool H and then put together a 2-1 (18-21, 21-15, 15-12) sixteenthfinal comeback win over Estonia’s Mart Tiisaar & Dimitriy Korotkov to move on to the next knockout round.
Seventh-seeded Yves Haussener & Julian Friedli, also from Switzerland, topped Pool G after a 2-0 (21-19, 21-13) shutout of Italy’s Enrico Rossi & Marco Viscovich. On Saturday morning, they will take on fifth-seeded Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos of Portugal.
22nd-seeded Italians Manuel Alfieri & Alex Ranghieri conquered the first place in Pool F. In the winners game, they came back from a set down to celebrate a 2-1 (19-21, 21-14, 15-13) victory over France’s Joadel Genevieve Gardoque & Elouan Chouikh-Barbez. Alfieri & Ranghieri will lock horns with Norwegian qualifiers Markus Mol & Adrian Mol for a spot in the quarterfinals.
Tri Bourne & Evan Cory, seeded 28th, beat Hagen Smith & Logan Webber by 2-1 (21-15, 22-24, 15-5) in the all-American Pool E final and jumped ahead to the eighthfinals, where they will face qualifiers Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov. The 30th-seeded Israelis battled it out for a nail-biting 2-1 (18-21, 27-25, 18-16) upset of sixth-seeded Frenchmen Remi Bassereau & Calvin Aye in the first elimination round.
Another French pair, Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, seeded 20th, beat Mol & Mol to the first place in Pool D in a 2-1 (14-21, 21-14, 15-11) comeback. They will next try to tackle Horst & Pascariuc on the way to the quarterfinals.
Chase Budinger & Miles Evans also won their pool final in three sets. In a hard-fought comeback, the 19th-seeded American Olympians defeated Elazar & Cuzmiciov by 2-1 (18-21, 24-22, 16-14) for the first place in Pool C. In the eighthfinals, they will take on Rossi & Viscovich.
Second-seeded Australian Olympians Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher lived up to their status in Pool B and mastered a 2-0 (21-18, 21-17) shutout of Italy’s Samuele Cottafava & Gianluca Dal Corso in the pool final. In the second knockout round, the Aussies will be challenged by Krattiger & Dillier.
A clash between seeds one and three will get Saturday’s center court action underway. Bracket leaders Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan left no doubts over their superiority in Pool A and hammered out a 2-0 (21-18, 21-15) sweep of the winners match against Tiisaar & Korotkov. They will now meet third-seeded Christoph Dressler & Philipp Waller of Austria, who recovered from losing their first match in Pool C with two consecutive wins.
Men’s playoff action in Xiamen will resume on Saturday at 09:00 local time (01:00 UTC).
