World Beach Tour Updates

Kiwi's looking to break Croatia drought

Kirk and Jas last year in Zagreb, Courtesy of FIVB

Kirk Pitman and Jason Lochead have come off a 25^th placing in Italy at the end of last month and will be looking to improve for the upcoming VIP Open held in Zagreb, Croatia, starting on the 6^th of June.

In the first 3 tournaments of the season the Kiwi's have had automatic entry into the main draw thanks to some good results at the end of last season. Now they will once again have to fight their way through the qualifying tournament. This is a dangerous sudden death format so they will need to be on fire from the start. The favourites for this tournament will once again be the Brazilians and also the Chinese men have climbed into 2^nd seeding.

The Kiwi's are yet to make a main draw (top 32) in Croatia, a statistic that they will be keen to change over the next few days.

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Netherlands win in Bahrain

The Dutch pair of Schuil-Nummerdor have recorded the first win by a Dutch team on the World beach tour while the Brazilians continue to excel taking out 2nd and 3rd, this was made even more impressive by the fact that these 2 teams were not the 2 top ranked Brazilian pairs. The tour is now in a rest week before the next round in Italy more -->

Bahrain Open May 8th - 12th

The New Zealand Pairing of Jason Lochead and Kirk Pitman have once again managed a valuable win in the main draw of the World tour. Not only has this earned them an extra US$3000 but has also kept their ranking up in the top 22 guaranteeing the pair entry into the main draw of the next world tour event in Italy. As the tour moves to Europe the entries have swelled to over 100 teams from over 30 countries so the Kiwi's are really proving that they can compete with the worlds very best.

In Bahrain the Kiwi's were defeated 2 - 0 by the top Australian team. In the sudden death losers bracket the Kiwi's overcame the top Japanese team 18 - 16 in the 3^rd set to advances to meet the 12^th seeded Austrians where the Kiwi's took a 1 - 0 lead and after a close 2^nd set which the Austrians won 22 - 20, the Kiwi's were outplayed in the 3^rd set going down 15 - 10. This Left the Kiwi's tied for 17th place.

Pitman / Lochead have once again showed that they are in contention to qualify for next years Olympic games, we wish them the best for the next round in Italy starting on May 23^rd.

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