AVC Asian U18 Beach Volleyball Championships:
Iranian teams crash out in quarterfinals
The two Iranian pairs missed out on last-four spots at the AVC Asian U18 Beach Volleyball Championships after suffering defeats against their Kazakhstani and Qatari opponents in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Saturday.
Iranian Team A – featuring Amirreza Jamshidi and Amin Vakili – which had topped Pool C with maximum points, began the day with a straight-set victory (21-16, 21-11) over Kazakhstan’s Ilya Pavlov and Vladislav Shelekhov to progress to the quarterfinals. However, they later surrendered a one-set lead to lose 2-1 (18-21, 21-11, 15-10) to the other Kazakhstani duo in the tournament, Orazali Sagynysh and Agabek Alikhan, at Tashkent’s Olympic Village – a repeat of the setback the Iranian team suffered when the two sides met in the CAVA U18 Championship final in the Uzbek capital last week.
Despite failing to secure a semifinal spot, the Iranian team will still have a chance to book a place at the upcoming U18 World Championships in through a classification playoff clash against Japan’s Rikuho Kashiwaki and Sota Sugiura.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Sina Al-e Yassin and Vahab Ownaq – bronze medalists at the CAVA event – also got off to a winning start on Saturday, beating Hong Kong’s Chung Siu Wing and Lee Yat Hei 2-1 (21-13, 19-21, 15-9) in the round of 16, before falling in back-to-back sets to Qatar’s Moussa Alkheer and Mubarak Musa.