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Beach volleyball 29/10/2013

Baburina/Mulenko dig deep to knock out top seeded qualifiers Grawender/Lundqvist at Phuket Open

Phuket,
Thailand, October 29, 2013 – Svitlana Baburina and Diana Mulenko from Ukraine
knocked out top seeded qualifiers Sweden’s Nina Grawender and Karin Lundqvist at
the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball Phuket Open on Tuesday. The penultimate Open of the year is back in Thailand for its
eighth consecutive year, taking place from October 28 to November 3.

Baburina/Mulenko
had the longest time on court in the morning against Chinese pair Fan Wang and
Yixin Zheng in the first round of qualification. After 52 minutes, the Ukrainian’s
secured their spot in the afternoon 2-1 (21-16, 18-21, 17-15), where they met Grawender/Lundqvist.

Ukraine
took the first set on centre court 21-19, but it was unclear which way the
result would finally swing. However, Baburina/Mulenko took command in the
second leading 10-4. Grawender/Lundqvist
stepped up a gear pulling back a number of points, but Ukraine never allowed
the Swedish girls to catch up.

A
couple of good blocks by Lundqvist attempted to save the set, but Baburina/Mulenko
quickly closed the match 2-0 (21-19, 21-13). Palmer is back

Becchara
Palmer is back on the FIVB circuit after questioning her beach volleyball
career after the London Olympic Games last year. She is testing the sand
in Phuket with new partner Zina Stone and the pair got off to a great start beating
China’s Meimei Lin and Ningya Tang in the morning. Palmer/Stone then had a
tough time in the afternoon and were knocked out by Russia’s Olga Motrich and Daria
Rudykh.

“Today
has probably been one of the hardest days of volleyball I’ve played in a long
time. We both had a bit of food poisoning, so physically we were both a bit wrecked.
So it was such an emotionally draining day and to have to come out and play,”
said Palmer.

We
played really well this morning, I was so proud of us and this afternoon we had
patches that we were really strong but ultimately I think this morning took it out
of us.”

“I
think it’s excellent. This is my first world tour and my first world tour game we
won, so that was a big thing for me. So, it’s going really well, it’s great,” said
Stone who took silver at the inaugural Youth Olympics in 2010.

Despite
failing to make it through to the main draw, it is early days for Palmer/Stone
and the team is optimistic for their ultimate goal, the Rio Olympics in 2016.

“You
always know it’s going to be warm here and considering we haven’t played any
world tour this season it’s always a tough ask to come in at the end and battle
against teams that have been playing all year. We just wanted to play our best
and leave with a smile on our face. It might take us a couple of days but we
learnt a lot,” said Palmer.

Australia
had three teams that progressed through to the afternoon, Mariafe Artacho and Nicole
Laird, Jordan Mowen and Justine Mowen and Becchara Palmer and Zina Stone, but none
managed to grab an elusive main draw spot.Mersmann/Schneider smoothly
through

Teresa
Mersmann and Isabel Schneider secured their main draw position beating Ayumi
Kusano and Sakurako Fujii from Japan 2-0
(21-15, 21-14) in their only match of the day.

“It’s
really hot here so we’re lucky that we only have one game today. We’re very
happy about our win and that we are in the main draw now,” said Schneider.

“We
love it here. We arrived on Sunday and saw the beach. The people are friendly and
it’s really nice.”

“It
would be good if we win a game in our pool, so we can come out of the pool.
After that we will just play and have fun and try everything to win,” said Mersmann.

Thailand has hosted
over 10 women’s and one men’s FIVB tournament. Overall, the USA has been the
most successful with 10 medal finishes in the seven FIVB World Tour events held
in Phuket.

The tournament
previously ran from 2006 until 2011, when the event moved to Bangsaen in 2012.
China’s Chen Xue and Zhang Xi won the 2011 edition, while Jennifer Kessy and
April Ross were victorious in 2012.

Phuket
is an island located to the south of Thailand, while the city of Phuket is the
island’s capital and home to 75,000 people. It is located 825 kilometres from
Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.

This
will be the eighth successive year that Thailand has staged an Open series
women’s event on the FIVB calendar.

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