Volleyball Empowerment helps three teams make Satun Futures podium

Half of the six teams, who climbed the podium at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures event in Satun over the weekend, receive coaching support through the FIVB Volleyball Empowerment programme. In the women’s competition, Lithuania’s Ieva Vasiliauskaite and Erika Kliokmanaite earned silver, while Czechia’s Valerie Dvornikova and Anna Pospisilova made it from the qualifiers all the way to the bronze medals, after winning an amazing 88-point set in their semifinal. French men’s pair Samuel Cattet and Olivier Barthelemy also made the journey from the qualification matches to the third step on the podium in Thailand.

In their international debut as a team, eighth-seeded Vasiliauskaite and Kliokmanaite started their Satun campaign with a 2-0 (23-21, 21-18) loss to Thailand’s Salinda Mungkhon and Jidapa Bunongkhun in their first Pool A game, but then went on a four-match winning streak to reach the final. The pair beat Hong Kong’s To Wing Tung and Wong Man Ching 2-0 (21-11, 21-14) to secure third place in the pool, beat fifth-seeded Asami Shiba and Saki Maruyama of Japan 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) in the round of 16, and overcame third-seeded Vanuatuans Majabelle Lawac and Sherysyn Toko 2-0 (21-15, 21-18) in the quarterfinals and Indonesian qualifiers Dhita Juliana and Desi Ratnasari by a narrow 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 23-21) in the semifinals.

Lithuania’s Ieva Vasiliauskaite and Erika Kliokmanaite (Photo credits: ltf.lt)

In Sunday’s big final against second-seeded Australians Nicole Laird and Brittany Kendall, the Lithuanians fought back from a set down to level the match, but eventually lost in the tie-breaker, 2-1 (12-21, 21-14, 15-9), to settle for silver. While Kliokmanaite had already earned her first Beach Pro Tour medal, a 2022 Klaipeda Futures gold at home in Lithuania, it was the first-ever Tour podium for her 23-year-old teammate Vasiliauskaite.

For Laird and Kendall, on the other hand, it was the first Beach Pro Tour appearance as a pair after last playing together internationally back in 2019, and they crowned it with gold, the duo’s first ever medal from a world-level competition. They went through the entire tournament in Satun unbeaten in five matches and losing only two sets, one of them to Vasiliauskaite and Kliokmanaite in the final.

The other set they lost was the epic first set of their semifinal encounter with Czechia’s Dvornikova and Pospisilova. It lasted 46 minutes and featured as many as 88 rallies before the Czechs claimed a 45-43 win. Eventually, the Aussies won the match 2-1 (43-45, 21-15, 15-10) to advance to the final, while the Czechs went on to claim a 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) victory over Indonesia’s Dhita Juliana and Desi Ratnasari for the bronze.

For 28-year-old Pospisilova and 20-year-old Dvornikova, who started competing on the Beach Pro Tour together in December, it was the best result so far. Their journey in Satun started from the qualifiers, when they produced a 2-0 (21-14, 21-18) shutout of Sweden’s Sara Malmstrom and Klara Ribom, and went through three more consecutive victories in the main draw on the way to the semis: 2-1 (14-21, 21-17, 15-11) over fourth-seeded Thais Varapatsorn Radarong and Tanarattha Udomchavee, and 2-1 (21-19, 15-21, 17-15) over fifth-seeded Asami Shiba and Saki Maruyama of Japan in Pool D, and a 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) quarterfinal win over Indonesia’s Yokebed Eka and Nur Sari.

Representing the hosts of next year’s Olympic Games Paris 2024, 25-year-old Cattet and 28-year-old Barthelemy earned their second podium at their second Beach Pro Tour appearance as a team. After the silver in their debut at the Hague Futures in December, the Frenchmen took the bronze in Satun. Cattet and Barthelemy went through their two qualification matches and the first pool match without dropping a set: 2-0 (21-9, 21-12) over Thailand’s Wachirawit Muadpha and Chatchawan Janchuen, 2-0 (21-18, 21-13) over New Zealand’s Giles Black and John McManaway and 2-0 (21-18, 21-13) over third-seeded home pair Banlue Nakprakhong and Intuch Techakijvorakul. But after losing their pool final by a narrow 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) to eventual silver medallists, sixth-seeded Germans Paul Henning and Sven Winter, the Frenchmen had to win two more games to reach the semifinals.

They managed a 2-1 (21-18, 25-27, 15-5) round of 16 victory over Sweden’s Alexander Annerstedt and Jakob Wijk Tegenrot and a 2-0 (22-20, 21-19) quarterfinal win over second-seeded Thais Surin Jongklang and Dunwinit Kaewsai to meet Henning and Winter again in the semis. Losing to the Germans again, but this time in three sets, 2-1 (16-21, 21-15, 15-13), Cattet and Barthelemy persevered through another hard-fought three-setter against Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Yakovlev and Sergey Bogatu to claim a 2-1 (16-21, 21-16, 17-15) victory and the bronze.

The men’s final was an all-German affair, in which 20-year-old Philipp Huster and 21-year-old Simon Pfretzschner defeated Henning and Winter in three sets, 2-1 (18-21, 21-17, 15-13), to celebrate their first-ever Beach Pro Tour medal as a pair. Previously, Huster had a runner-up finish at the 2022 Leuven Futures. The first set of the final was the first the eighth-seeded Germans lost at the tournament. They had swept all four of their previous matches in Satun in straight sets. For their compatriots Henning and Winter, the Satun silver was the first Beach Pro Tour medal of their careers.

28 men’s and 22 women’s teams from a total of 20 different countries from four continental confederations took part in the tournament.

Beach Pro Tour 2023 full event schedule