OSTRAVA, Czech Republic – If your neck feels a bit sore or achy, you can be forgiven. Had you been watching Betsi Flint and Kylie Deberg match up with the Czech Republic’s Martina Maixnerova and Kylie Neuschaeferova during Wednesday’s qualifier of the Ostrava Elite, you’d have suffered whiplash like the rest of the few thousand folks in the stands.
It seemed, for a few minutes, that there’d be no whiplash at all, no theatrics to the final women’s qualifying match. Maixnerova and Neuschaeferova won the first set, 21-18, and were in a commanding position in the second, 9-5 and then 12-9 at the technical timeout. But then came Flint and Deberg, rattling off three in a row to tie it at 12…which preceded a 3-0 run from the Czech Republic…which preceded a 4-0 run from the United States.
No lead was safe — and no deficit was too big.
For there were Flint and Deberg, up a set point, 20-19, only to watch that advantage slip into a 21-20 deficit, which they promptly flipped back into a 23-21 second set win.
Take a breath.
Massage the neck.
Prepare for another round, for that was, unbelievably, only the beginning.
Flint and Deberg charged out in the third, cracking open a 4-1 lead on the backs of excellent serving and Deberg blocking. A brief tie at 5-5 gave way, again, to a 9-6 U.S. lead. Then came the one run to rule them all: A 7-1 ripper from the Czech Republic to crack open what would prove to be the only defnitive lead of the match, one they held on to win, 15-11, in the third.
It capped an enormous day for the Czech women, who went a perfect 3-0 in Wednesday’s qualifier at their home event.
The day began with a stunner, from 23-year-old Valerie Dvornikova and 20-year-old Veronika Kleiblova, who knocked off No. 2 Linda Bock and Louisa Lippmann of Germany, 13-21, 22-20, 15-13. The win vaulted them not just into their first main draw of the season, but their first above the Futures level.
An hour later, a second main draw berth was punched, this one by the Pavelkova twins, Anna and Katerina, the now-former Texas stars who swept Hailey Harward and Xolani Hodel, 21-17, 21-14 less than a month after leading the Longhorns to the NCAA semifinals.
The three qualifiers will join wild card Marie-Sara Stochlova and Marketa Svozilova in the main, making it the highest total main draw teams ever at home for the Czech women.
In fact, the Czech Republic has only had one team make the main draw in each of the past four editions of the Ostrava Elite, the Iron Major of the Beach Pro Tour. The last time multiple pairings have made the main draw came in 2019, when the main draw boasted 32 teams.
Ondrej Perusic is the 2023 Beach Pro Tour Sportsmanship Award winner/Volleyball World photo
Ondrej Perusic, kind of retired, still very, very good
Beach volleyball is famous for its ability to retire a player in a kinda-sorta way that allows the player to still be active, but not really pursuing the game full-time, while still being very, very good (see: Phil Dalhausser, Theo Brunner).
Allow Ondrej Perusic to join that nebulous classification of player who is retired, but only kind of, because there he was on Wednesday in the qualifier. And there he will be again in the main draw, as he and Jiri Sedlak won their qualifier match, 21-9, 16-21, 15-11.
Miles Partain, James Shaw cruise into Ostrava Elite main draw
In their second tournament as a team, Miles Partain and James Shaw wasted little time in punching their ticket into the main draw. They swept Lithuania’s Karolis Palubinskas and Arnas Rumsevicius, 21-12, 21-11 to make their first Elite main draw as a team. Partain has a strong history in Ostrava, having won a pair of bronze medals, in 2023 and 2024, and took fifth here a year ago, all with Andy Benesh.
Sara Hughes, Ally Batenhorst make strong Ostrava debut
Sara Hughes and Ally Batenhorst kicked off USA Volleyball’s effort in Ostrava in a convincing way, with a smooth, 21-16, 21-16 victory over Slovakia’s Martina Terenova and Barbora Tokosova. Hughes won here in 2024 with Kelly Cheng, and she is seeking her first Elite medal with Batenhorst, with whom she has won a pair of bronzes in Challenges in Bhubansewar and Tlaxcala.
Corinne Quiggle, Chloe Loreen rebound from Nuvali in big way
After an excellent start to the season, Corinne Quiggle and Chloe Loreen stumbled last weekend at the Nuvali Challenge, dropping both matches to finish 25th. No problem. They responded with a qualifier sweep over Switzerland’s Menia Bentele and Annique Neiderhauser, 21-14, 21-17, to make their second Elite main draw of the season.
Kristen Cruz | AVP Huntington Beach (2026). (Photo by Will Chu)
Ostrava Elite Main Draw Storylines to Follow
Kristen Cruz, Taryn Brasher attempt to keep perfect Beach Pro Tour record
The longest winning streak in international beach volleyball belongs, with little surprise, to Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher. They’re 14-0 on the year with consecutive gold medals, in Joao Pessoa and Saquarema, a back-to-back they’ve only done once before, when they won Espinho and Gstaad in succession in 2024. They enter as the one seed, but also on the heels of their first domestic loss in more than a calendar year, when Savvy Cory and Devon Newberry stunned them in the semifinals of AVP Huntington Beach.
Ostrava has been strangely elusive to Cruz and Brasher, who finished fifth in 2023, the year of their major breakout, and 13th a year ago, when they found themselves squaring off with – and losing to – world No. 1, and eventual gold medalists, Thamela and Victoria in the first round of the playoffs.
Norway’s GOAT hunt put on hold
Anders Mol and Christian Sorum are four victories behind Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos (34) for the most all-time – a number that will remain at four this week in Ostrava. Mol is resting a shoulder that’s still bothering him after bombing jump serve after jump serve during a gold medal effort in Saquarema in early April. It leaves the field rather open for David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig, a team wasting no time in climbing the victories leaderboard, to tack another gold to the ledger. Currently, Ahman and Hellvig are No. 4 on the all-time wins list with 17, six victories behind Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers.
Can anyone dethrone Scandinavia?
While Anders Mol and Christian Sorum’s absence makes a gold medal significantly easier for David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig and their Swedish counterparts, Jacob Holting-Nilsson and Elmer Andersson, it also does the same for the remainder of the field. In three elites thus far this season, nobody from outside Scandinavia has been able to claim a gold medal. France’s Remi Daubas and Calvin Aye came close, in Joao Pessoa, as did Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Michal Bryl in Brasilia, but both fell to Sweden. The federation who could provide a wrinkle, however, belongs to…
Dutchmen make their return
The fields have been conspicuously absent of one of the most dominant federations in the world in 2026, that of the Netherlands men. Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot split after a 17th place finish at the World Championships in November. Alex Brouwer and Steven van de Velde haven’t competed since a fifth-place finish in Cape Town in October. Now, both teams are back, albeit in a shuffled manner, with Boermans debuting with Brouwer, and de Groot with van de Velde.
Some credit, of course, must be given to Leon Luini and Matthew Immers, who have very much been competing, with a pair of fifths – in Tlaxcala and Brasilia – and a silver medal in Nayarit, Mexico. They advanced into the main draw with a sweep over Austria’s Felix Freidl and Florian Schnetzer.
