OzVolley.org

As the sun continued to drench the sand, the world’s four best young women’s Beach Volleyball tandems from four different countries provided their own brand of hot performances Saturday at the Porto complex to advance to Sunday’s semifinals and medal matches at the 2010 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships, the ninth annual event for players under 19.

Pleasingly for us, one of these great teams is the Australian pairing of Karly Hynes and Taliqua Clancy! They have made the top 4 and play their semi final tonight against USA’s third-seeded Jane Croson/Summer Ross.

Hynes said of her pairing with Taliqua, “My regular partner is injured and Taliqua and I have been training for just over three weeks for the SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships. We have worked very hard and now we won our quarterfinal match, which is great, especially considering our short time together. Tomorrow we will do our best and if we win it would be fantastic, but we have already accomplished a lot by reaching the final four.”

You are an outside shot at seeing their match livestreamed here, but I am not certain how that will go.

Bummer. According to the LA Times:

“The Assn. of Volleyball Professionals held a conference call with its players Wednesday to discuss its financial troubles. Among the issues raised was the possibility that the tour, which began the second half of its 2010 season Saturday at Long Beach, would see its season cut short.”

All this is probably not helped with the introduction of rival pro tour sponsored by Corona, which has Karch Kiraly (Triple Olympic Gold Medalist in Beach & Indoor, and current assistant coach of the US Womens indoor team) as it’s “Chief Volleyball Officer”.  Karch gives his two cents here.

Volleyball SA is running a referee course on the Wednesday the 18th of August at Marden. Starting at 6:30pm till 9:30pm. This course is the Level 1 course, and the successful completion will accredit attendees with a District
qualification. Allowing them to referee at all Volleyball SA events as well as State and National Schools Cup. To register interest and book your place, please contact Michael Murphy at ozvolley.org@gmail.com or murp0151@flinders.edu.au

The Youth World Championships are underway! Check back here to see how our three Australian Teams are doing.

Sam Halliday/Sam Kingston
Lincoln Williams/Nick Anstey
Karley Hynes/Taliqua Clancy

Halliday and Kingston played Boehlé and Nijland of the Netherlands tonight, losing 2-1 (24-22, 17-21, 15-10) in just under an hour. Apparently it was a very close game, and the guys were unlucky not to win the first two sets before being over run in the 3rd. Their tournament is now over.

Williams/Anstey faced Kobernyk-Remezov of Ukraine today, unfortunately they got soundly beaten in the second set after starting off pretty well in the first, they lost 2-0 (21-19, 21-8). They have also lost to Russians Bolgov-Bykanov 2-0 (21-13, 21-10) and again to Austrians Dressler-Petutschnig which puts them out of the tournament.

Hynes/Clancy have defeated Zhang CH. N.-Wang Fan of China. They won a tight 3 setter 1-2 (19-21, 21-14, 10-15). They have just played Mariana-Joana, the Portuguese top seeds and won the game 1-2 (21-18, 19-21, 5-15) which guarantees them passage into the next round.
The girls have now won three from three, defeating Americans Dykstra-Strehlow 2-1 (21-17, 19-21, 15-13). They now take their place in the next round as the top place getter in their pool.

Early surprise results are seeing top qualifying seeds Strobel-Wolf of Germany lose to Halanda-Podstupka of Slovakia 0-2 (19-21, 19-21) showing that, as always, you cannot trust the seedings of ANY junior tournament.

Congratulations of course to the WA Pearls who have won the WAVL for a second consecutive year, making it 24 matches undefeated.

Also congratulations to Tara West (WA Pearls) and Priscilla Ruddle (Canberra Heat) who have been awarded Most Valuable Players for the 2010 series.

After finishing 9th in their last event in Marseille, Becchara Palmer and Lou Bawden continue their fine recent form, qualifying for the A1 Grand Slam in Klagenfurt, Austria. Their pool is Brazil heavy, featuring Vivian-Lima BRA, Maria Clara-Carol BRA and Hansel-Montagnolli AUT. They reached the main draw with wins over Jin J.Q.-A. Hu of China, 2-0 (22-20, 21-15) and Jakob-Vodeb of Slovenia 2-0 (21-17, 21-17).

Great news also for Australia, with Tamsin Hinchley and Nat Cook being granted a wild card into the event! They face Dutch pair Wesselink-Meppelink, Americans Kessy-Ross and another Dutch tandem, Keizer-Van Iersel.

Unfortunately Hinchley and Cook lost a tight 3 setter to Kessy and Ross! It took almost an hour for the Americans to win 2-1 (21-16, 17-21, 15-11). This puts Tam and Nat on the back foot in the group, but they will take great heart from performing strongly against the 6th seeded pairing and will look for a win tomorrow against the Dutch.

Another tight game in game 2 for Hinchley and Cook, this time they got up in a tight 3 setter 1-2 (24-22, 22-24, 8-15) against Keizer-Van Iersel. They followed this up with a loss to Wesselink-Meppelink 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) but they have scraped through to the next round in 3rd place in their group.

The last of our Australian teams has been knocked out with Maria Clara-Carol defeating Hinchley-Cook 2-0 (21-15, 21-16).

Becchara Palmer and Louise Bawden were successful in their first match, making a great upset win over Maria Clara-Carol of Brazil (the number 8 seeds) 1-2 (21-23, 21-17, 17-19)!!
The girls have lost their second game, their Austrian opponents were too strong in the 3rd set, winning 2-1 (20-22, 21-19, 15-7). The girls have finished off their group matches with a loss to Vivian-Lima 2-0 (21-14, 21-18). This leaves them in last place in their pool, and puts them out of the competition. Bad luck Bec and Lou!

Chris McHugh and Josh Slack lost their qualifying match against Dugrip-Salvetti of France 0-2 (17-21, 19-21). Sam Boehm and Isaac Kapa lost to Plavins-Smedins of Latvia 0-2 (18-21, 18-21). Both men’s teams are now out of qualifying and will have to move on to Poland next week.

WA Pearls have taken an easy win in three sets, 25-21, 25-21, 25-20.

The win puts WA straight into the Gold Medal match as they continue their unbeaten record. UTSSU get a second chance again tonight at 6pm, against the winner of the next match between Uni Blues and Volleyball SA.

Full report can be found here.

More highlights from the Aus Youth Men’s team, this time against Iran. Check it out!

The Australian Youth Men have a highlight video of their game against Korea at the Asian Champs! One of the Korean middle blockers must have hated his outside blocker. Plenty of blocks and throw downs by Rory Welsh as well!

Get on it!

One of our readers has informed me that ALLEGEDLY:

Former national junior team captain and national beach rep Bradley Smith stormed the Gillard presentation and was detained by fed police…

Reading the web shows he’s a proud activist and has been fighting the fight for a while now!