Well that was easy.
It wasn’t of course. Nothing on the Beach Pro Tour is, particularly at the Elite16 level. But damn if James Shaw and Chaim Schalk didn’t make Wednesday’s qualifier at the Quintana Roo Elite16 look easy, taking just 34 minutes to mop up Brazil’s Guto and Vitor Felipe, 21-12, 21-17 to make the main draw.
This week’s Elite16 is the sixth Beach Pro Tour event for the relatively new pair, and the first main draw at the top level. Their debut came at the Rio Elite16 last November, where they fell in the final round of the qualifier to the eventual – and shocking – gold medalists, Javier Bello and Joaquin Bello of England. It was a rash of errors that plagued them then.
There were nearly none to be found on Wednesday in Mexico.
Schalk and Shaw were borderline perfect in the hot and humid and windy conditions on a deep and pristine Mexican beach. The pressure at the net from Shaw and an exceptional sideout rate from both forced Guto and Vitor into a number of errors, 14 in total, with 10 coming in sideout or transition.
The Americans led in every category you’d want to lead: Schalk’s 12 digs nearly doubled Guto’s 7, their 27 team kills again nearly doubled Brazil’s 15, Shaw’s 8 block touches nearly tripled Vitor’s 3, although, it should be noted that Vitor’s 3 block touches resulted in 3 blocks while Shaw finished with just 2 kill blocks.
It was, in short, a perfect season-opener for Shaw and Schalk on what was a mostly good day for USA Volleyball as a whole.
The women went three of four in qualifier matches, with Corinne Quiggle and Chloe Loreen taking out Australian Olympian Taliqua Clancy and her new partner, 23-year-old Jana Milutinovic, 15-21, 21-18, 17-15. Kim Hildreth and Teegan Van Gunst, who finished fourth a week ago at a Challenge in Yucatan, Mexico, swept Argentina’s Brenda Churin and Agostina Ghigliazza, 21-12, 21-16. And former Florida State standouts Brook Bauer and Maddie Anderson outlasted New Zealand’s Liv McDonald and Shaunna Polley, 15-21, 21-17, 19-17 to punch their main draw ticket.
The only USA Volleyball team not to make it out was, oddly enough, fourth-seeded Lexy Denaburg and Julia Scoles, the new pairing who were upset by Finland’s Niina Ahtiainen and Taru Lahti, 14-21, 21-14, 15-13.
They were not alone in three-set heartbreaks.
Two of the three American men’s teams – Tri Bourne and Evan Cory, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans – were leading 12-9 in the third set of their respective matches.
Neither closed the deal.
Bourne and Cory fell to second-seeded Austrians Chris Dressler and Philipp Waller, 21-15, 17-21, 16-14, while Budinger and Evans were stunned by the No. 11 seed from Argentina, Bautista Amieva and Maciel Bueno, 21-17, 16-21, 17-15.
Because of the change in format of the Elite16s, which now include 24 teams in the main draw, the main draw action commenced immediately after the close of the qualifier. Two USA Volleyball teams notched wins: Taryn Brasher and Kristen Nuss avenged Denaburg and Scoles with a sweep over Finland, and Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft debuted their 2025 season with a friendly fire three-set win over Bauer and Anderson. Quiggle and Loreen lost a bizarrely lopsided-yet-somehow-close match against Germany’s Cinja Tillmann and Svenja Muller, 21-8, 10-21, 15-9. Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw, meanwhile, dropped their partnership debut against Ukraine’s Maryna Hladun and Tetiana Lazarenko, 21-13, 21-19, and will play Hildreth and Van Gunst to determine who moves on from pool play.
With the change in teams also comes a change in format. Rather than the traditional round-robin style of pool play the Elite16s have been previously run, it will now be a modified pool, meaning if you lose your first match, you are now in a win-or-go-home scenario. Winning your first guarantees a break into the playoff rounds.
Brook Bauer/Volleyball World photo
