Slovenian qualifiers Tjasa Kotnik and Tajda Lovsin delivered a major upset at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Torquay on Thursday to secure a berth in Friday’s quarterfinals. The 13th-seeded team defeated fourth-seeded Julia Sude and Isabel Schneider in the last Pool D match to knock the Germans out of contention. Bottom-seeded qualifiers Jagoda Gruszczynska and Aleksandra Wachowicz also caused a stir by advancing to the next round at the expense of USA’s Emily Stockman and Megan Kraft in Pool A.

· Watch the matches at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Torquay live on Volleyball TV.

The 30-year-old Kotnik produced as many as seven kill blocks in the Slovenians’ 2-1 (21-19, 16-21, 15-12) victory over Sude and Schneider on Thursday. She also chipped in a couple of aces towards a 25-point tally, while Schneider on the opposite side of the net registered the match high of 26 points, all in attack. The match was a direct battle for the second place in the pool and Kotnik and Lovsin advanced to the quarterfinals of an Elite16 tournament for the second time, after also doing so in Cape Town last month. Meanwhile, fifth-seeded Americans Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles confidently took the top of the pool standings after their third straight-set win in a row, an emphatic 2-0 (21-13, 21-9) over Australia’s Alisha Stevens and Nicole Laird.

Just as convincingly, and without a set dropped, another American pair, second-seeded Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng topped the final standings in Pool B. Last week’s Torquay Challenge tournament winners mastered a 2-0 (21-15, 21-9) shutout of Australian qualifiers Georgia Johnson and Jasmine Fleming. Meanwhile, Xia Xinyi and Lin MeiMei defeated Zeng Jinjin and Wang Xinxin by 2-0 (21-16, 21-11) in an all-Chinese clash to finish pool runners-up on 2-1 and progress in the tournament.

Poland’s Gruszczynska and Wachowicz, seeded 16th in the main draw bracket, started their day with a 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) upset of ninth-seeded Akiko Hasegawa and Yurika Sakaguchi of Japan. Wachowicz led the scoring with 22 points, including four aces and two blocks. In their last Pool A match, however, the Polish duo lost to top-seeded Australians Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho Del Solar in straight sets, 2-0 (21-15, 21-18), and finished on a 1-2 win-loss record. Clancy impressed with five aces and two stuffs towards a 22-point tally in the match.

Eighth-seeded Stockman and Kraft had also been shut out by the Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallists 2-0 (21-10, 21-14) earlier in the day. So when Akiko and Yurika came back from a set down to celebrate a 2-1 (19-21, 21-19, 15-12) victory over the Americans, it was Gruszczynska and Wachowicz who topped a three-way tie on the best point ratio. The Poles finished pool runners-up and progressed to the quarterfinals of their first Elite16 tournament.

A three-way tie was also resolved on point ratios to determine the winners and the runners-up in Pool C. Two more points scored in their last match of Pool C would have made a difference for New Zealand’s Shaunna Polley and Alice Zeimann, but it was third-seeded Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss and sixth-seeded Thais Worapeerachayakorn Kongphopsarutawadee and Taravadee Naraphornrapat who edged in front of the Kiwis as three teams finished on a 2-1 win-loss record each.

On Thursday morning, Polley and Zeimann managed a 2-0 (24-22, 21-11) shutout of China’s Yuan Lvwen and Dong Jie to claim their second victory in the pool. Nuss and Kloth meanwhile mastered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) win over Worapeerachayakorn and Naraphornrapat. The Chinese team forfeited their last match against the Americans and the Thai duo grabbed the second ticket to the quarterfinals with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-16) sweep of Polley and Zeimann.

Worapeerachayakorn and Naraphornrapat will take on Hughes and Cheng when Friday’s quarterfinals begin at 14:00 local time (03:00 UTC). At the same time, Nuss and Kloth will go against Xia and Lin on centre court. An hour later, Kotnik and Lovsin will challenge Clancy and Mariafe, while Flint and Scoles lock horns with Gruszczynska and Wachowicz. The semifinals are also set to take place on Friday.

Torquay Elite16 schedule and results

Quick links:
Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Torquay Elite16
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Youtube