Recap of first day of the Samila-Chang Asian Beach Volleyball Tournament
The 12th Samila-Chang Asian Beach Volleyball Tournament started off with preliminary robin round on Sunday, April 10.
The playing-courts have been set up at the B.P. Samila Beach Hotel in Songkhla, Thailand. The double gender event is attended by 46 teams from 13 countries of the world. Initially, it was planned that 14 countries will send their teams in the competition
but Singapore sought withdrawal just a few days before the official opening of the event. A total of 22 women’s teams just showed up on the opening day of the tournament on Sunday.
The crown holders will get their pockets filled with the prize money of US$30,000. Hence, it is pretty much interesting watch the participating teams that how they prove their endeavour on the centre court.
The first preliminary robin round of the tournament is scheduled to complete its run over three days. The robin round will promote only top two best teams of each pool in the next round. The Samila-Cange Asian Beach Volleyball tournament will be rounded
off on next Saturday, April 16.
On the opening day of the tournament, the home duos played well and booked slots in the next round of the tournament. Thailand’s Kamoltip Kulna/ Varapatsorn Radarong profited the home advantage against Yogavathi handayuthabalasubramanian and Pavitthra Varadharajan
of India in the first match. The visiting team from India totally collapsed in the hands of Thai players. They finished both sets with very low points. They could only help 9 points in the opening set of the match, while home duo touched the finish line. The
second set was even worse as the Indians were kicked out at 5-21. Eventually, the pairing of Kamoltip Kulna/ Varapatsorn Radarong settled for the next round competition.
It was great progress on Kulna’s part as she was paired with new partner. Previously, she was attached with Yupa Phokongploy who left the team from some odd reason.
However, Kulna formed new partnership with Radarong and they did pretty well in the Samila Opener. The duo is now set to face Japan’s Junko Komada and Keiko Urata on Monday.
There are three other Thailand’s teams, which have been promoted to the next round without any sweating. The duo of Yupa Phokongploy and Tanarattha Udomchavee in Pool C moved to the next round as they got walkover. They were supposed to meet Singapore 1,
which apparently withdrew from the tournament.
The top-seeded Thailand’s duo, Jarunee Sannok and Usa Tenpaksee also progressed to the next stage of the tournament in the same fashion. They were supposed to face Singapore 2. The withdrawal of Singapore solely benefitted Thailand as the home team did not
have to do anything in clearing the early stage of the tournament.
Likewise, Kazakhstan’s second-seeded duo of Tatyana Mashkova and Irina Tsimbalova finished the first day with success. They were challenged by New Zealand’s Alicia Malcolm and Alison Storey in the first round match. The Kazak ladies staged a stellar performance
and launched their authority on the opponents. The match spanned over 25 minutes, while two sets were played. Kazak side finished the opening set with 11-point win over NZ Team (21-9). The second set also came successful for Kazakhstan and they pulled off
success by thrashing 21-6 over the opposite side. They have also qualified for the next round, which will require them to deal with the power of Australian Serah Battaglena and Katie Bartoli on Monday.
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