As many as four of the teams, who emerged from Wednesday’s qualifications in the men’s competition at the Xiamen Challenge, opened their main draw campaigns with upsets of much higher seeds on Thursday and already secured their spots in the knockout stages of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour tournament in China.
Challenge - Xiamen, CHN - 2025
Qualifiers produce upsets on main draw opening day in Xiamen
Тhe first men’s main draw matches offer plenty of other surprising results as well
Published 08:43, 15 May 2025
Switzerland’s Jonathan Jordan
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Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov were the lowest seeded team that managed to win their first pool match in Xiamen. The Israeli qualifiers, competing under number 30 in the main draw bracket, managed to surprise third-seeded Christoph Dressler & Philipp Waller of Austria in a 2-0 (21-19, 21-12) straight-setter. Cuzmiciov impressed with five aces, while Elazar raised four kill blocks as they contributed 15 points each towards this success. In the Pool C winners match on Friday, the Israelis will take on 19th-seeded American Olympians Miles Evans & Chase Budinger, who also upset 14th-seeded Adelmo Folha & Mateus Dultra of Brazil in straight sets, 2-0 (21-18, 21-18). The winner of that clash will advance straight to the eighthfinals, skipping the sixteenthfinal playoff round.
29th-seeded Norwegian qualifiers Markus Mol & Adrian Mol achieved a solid 2-0 (21-16, 21-15) victory over fourth-seeded D'Artagnan Potts & Jack Pearse of Australia, with a match-high 20 points from Markus, and will play against France’s Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat for the first place in Pool D and a direct ticket to the eighthfinals. There was an upset in the other pool match as well, with 20th-seeded Rotar & Gauthier-Rat putting together a 2-0 (21-14, 21-19) sweep of their encounter with 13th-seeded Austrians Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger.
Another team from the qualifications, France’s Joadel Genevieve Gardoque & Elouan Chouikh-Barbez, seeded 27th in the main draw, celebrated a 2-0 (21-16, 26-24) victory over sixth-seeded compatriots Remi Bassereau & Calvin Aye in Pool F. Chouikh fired four aces and raised two kill blocks to lead his team with a total of 21 points. Next, Genevieve Gardoque & Chouikh will meet 22nd-seeded Italians Manuel Alfieri & Alex Ranghieri, who also broke the seeding with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-13) shutout of 11th-seeded Julian Horl & Moritz Pristauz of Austria.
Two of the Swiss teams that earned their main draw spots through the qualifiers ended up together in Pool H. 25th-seeded Adrian Heidrich & Jonathan Jordan hammered out an emphatic 2-0 (21-6, 21-10) sweep of their match against Chinese wild cards Liu Yuan & Mao Yuan, seeded eighth, with the help of six kill blocks from Heidrich. The only Austrian team that avoided an upset and won their game on Thursday, ninth-seeded Alexander Horst & Paul Pascariuc, defeated the other Swiss qualifiers in this pool, Marco Krattiger & Leo Dillier, by 2-0 (21-14, 21-19).
The seeding was broken in many of the other pool matches as well. Pool E will feature an all-American final between 28th-seeded Tri Bourne & Evan Cory and 21st-seeded Hagen Smith & Logan Webber, who swept their opening matches against fifth-seeded Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos of Portugal and 12th-seeded Philipp Huster & Maximilian Just of Germany, respectively, both in straight sets.
In Pool G, 23rd-seeded Italians Enrico Rossi & Marco Viscovich shut out 10th-seeded Germans Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter and will play against seventh-seeded Yves Haussener & Julian Friedli of Switzerland, who struggled against qualifiers Bradley Fuller & Ben O'Dea of New Zealand in a three-set battle.
Bracket leaders Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan beat Latvian qualifiers Gustavs Auzins & Toms Liepa in straight sets, while Estonia’s Mart Tiisaar & Dimitriy Korotkov did so with the other Latvian team in Pool A, Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics.
Pool B was the only one, in which the higher seeds won both matches, but both were pushed to tie-breaker resolutions. Second-seeded Australian Olympians Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher had to come back from a set down against Swiss qualifiers Florian Breer & Luc Fluckiger. Italy’s Samuele Cottafava & Gianluca Dal Corso also defeated the other Australian duo in the pool, Paul Burnett & Luke Ryan, after a three-set battle.
Men’s main draw action in Xiamen will resume on Friday at 09:00 local time (01:00 UTC) with the first-place and the third-place matches in the pools.
