Mexican qualifiers delight home fans with big upset in Veracruz Challenge main draw opener

To the delight of the home fans at the Veracruz Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, Mexican qualifiers Antonio Lares & Carlos Andres Ayala dropped a big upset of fourth-seeded Canadians Samuel Schachter & Jonathan Pickett in their opening match of men’s main draw pool play action on Thursday and secured their spot in the knockout phase of the tournament.

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Seeded 29^th in the 32-team main draw bracket, Lares & Carlos Andres produced a 2-1 (18-21, 21-18, 15-10) comeback victory over Schachter & Picket, with a match-high 25 points from Lares, including an impressive eight kill blocks and an ace. In Friday’s second leg of pool play, the Mexican duo will take on Spain’s Alejandro Huerta & Adrian Gavira for the first place in Pool D and a direct pass to the eighthfinals, while the Canadian pair will meet England’s Joaquin Bello & Javier Bello in the survival match for the third place in the pool and a ticket to the sixteenthfinal round. Huerta & Gavira put together a 2-0 (21-19, 21-14) sweep of their opening game against the Bello twins.

A spectacular battle unfolded in the all-Swiss duel between Adrian Heidrich & Jonathan Jordan and Yves Haussener & Julian Friedli in Pool C. Coming back from a set down, in the overtime of the tie-breaker, 19^th-seeded Haussener & Friedli squeezed out a nail-biting 2-1 (15-21, 24-22, 16-14) win. Friedli led the way for the winners with 19 points, including four kill blocks and two aces. Heidrich was the best scorer of the match with 24 points, including four aces and three blocks. Next, Haussener & Friedli will meet third-seeded George Wanderley & Saymon Barbosa of Brazil, who mastered a 2-0 (21-10, 21-10) shutout of Canadian qualifiers Tynan Gannett & Luke de Greeff.

In another narrow three-setter, second-seeded Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos of Portugal were pushed to a tie-breaker resolution by 31^st-seeded Norwegian qualifiers Nils Gunnar Ringoen & Even Stray Aas, but managed to turn the course of the match around to a 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 16-14) victory. Pedrosa raised as many as eight kill blocks towards a match-high 27 points. In the Pool B winners match, the Portuguese pair will take on USA’s Robert Wyatt Harrison & Cody Caldwell.

The final in Pool A will be between top-seeded Americans Miles Evans & Chase Budinger and Italy’s Enrico Rossi & Marco Viscovich. Another Italian team, Manuel Alfieri & Alex Ranghieri, will take on fifth-seeded Ukrainians Sergiy Popov & Eduard Reznik for the first place in Pool E. The first place in Pool F will be at stake as sixth-seeded Germans Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter and three-time Olympians Marco Grimalt & Esteban Grimalt of Chile lock horns on Friday. Another Chilean team, seventh-seeded Vicente Droguett & Fernando Quintero, will be challenged by Austria’s Christoph Dressler & Philipp Waller for the first place in Pool G, while the battle for the top of Pool H will be between USA’s Chaim Schalk & James Shaw and Ruben Penninga & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands.

Men’s main draw action will resume at 09:00 local time (15:00 UTC) on Friday with the second-leg matches in the pools.

VW Beach Pro Tour Veracruz Challenge: schedule and results

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