Asian Beach Games:
Iranian pairs sweep opening matches in men’s beach volleyball
The two Iranian pairs enjoyed an impressive start to their men’s beach volleyball campaign at the 2026 Asian Beach Games in Sanya, China, completing a clean sweep of five victories between them over the first two days of the competition.
Abbas Pourasgari and Alireza Aqajani teamed up to beat the hosts’ Zhang Tai and Zhou Chaowei in straight sets (21-18, 21-17) on Friday for their third successive win in the Games. They sit second in Pool G of the preliminaries with six points – one behind the Chinese duo, which has played four games.
The Iranian pair had begun the day with a comfortable 2-0 win (21-8, 21-9) against Bhutan’s Tshering Dorji and Jurme Rangdal, having previously defeated Anjana Manikkuhewage and Sadun Andibuduge in straight sets (21-12, 21-15) on Thursday.
Elsewhere, Abolhassan Khakizadeh and Amirali Qalenovi celebrated a second successive victory in Pool B on Friday, beating the Maldives’ Adam Naseem and Sajid Ismail 2-0 (21-15, 21-10).
The Iranian pair, which had overcome Uzbekistan’s Azamat Dauilbaev and Dilshodbek Tolibaev in two sets (21-16, 21-18) on the opening day of the beach volleyball event, sits second in the group table – trailing Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan on set-point ratio.
The top spot in the group will be at stake when Khakizadeh and Qalenovi go head-to-head with the formidable Qatari pair – bronze medalists at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics – later today.
Pourasgari and Aqajani, meanwhile, will be looking to secure the top spot in their group when they square off against Syria’s Orwa Alsakka and Kutiba Albirini – bottom of the table with three defeats – later today.
Iran will be represented by 57 athletes across 10 sports: beach wrestling, beach volleyball, beach handball, beach soccer, jiu-jitsu, beach kabaddi, athletics, 3x3 basketball, sport climbing, and water polo. The sixth edition of the multi-sport event officially began with the opening ceremony on Wednesday, returning after a decade-long hiatus, and will run until Thursday.