The Asian swing of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour began Wednesday morning in the Philippines’ Nuvali Challenge. As it tends to go in the fall, USA Volleyball enjoyed a strong start, with two out of three teams in the qualifier making the main draw.
Logan Webber and Hagen Smith, the top seed in Wednesday’s qualifier, won a tremendous bout over Switzerland’s Florian Breer and Luc Fluckiger, 19-21, 24-22, 16-14. It’s their first main draw since the Alanya Challenge in June, where they finished seventeenth. They are now in a pool that includes Italy’s Sam Cottafava and Gianluca dal Corso, French qualifiers Keran Duval and Arthur Canet, and Denmark’s Nicolai Hovmann and Mads Mollgaard.
They’ll join two other USA Volleyball men’s teams in the main draw: third-seeded Cody Caldwell and Wyatt Harrison, and No. 24 Tim Brewster and Ryan Ierna. The only USA Volleyball team not to make the main draw was Zephyr Dew and Dave Wieczorek, who fell to Breer and Fluckiger, 21-17, 14-21, 15-8.
The women went a perfect 1-for-1 on Wednesday, as Avery Poppinga and Kamila Tan punched their main draw ticket with a resounding 21-16, 21-7 win over Japan. Nuvali is their second event as a team, the first coming two weeks ago at the Veracruz Challenge, where they were the only team to take a set off eventual gold medalists Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon.
They will join Alaina Chacon and Morgan Chacon, coming off a career-high ninth at the Newport Elite, Madison Shields and Devanne Sours, and Piper Ferch and Teegan Van Gunst. This is the first event as a team for Ferch, the former Cal Poly standout, and Van Gunst, who played the first chunk of the season alongside Kim Hildreth.
USA Volleyball has a track record of success in the Asian fall events. Last year, Molly Shaw and Toni Rodriguez won medals three straight events, in Haikou, China, Chennai, India, and Nuvali. Evan Cory and Caldwell won gold in Haikou, and Kylie DeBerg and Hailey Harward took silver in Chennai.
