Beach Volleyball U18 World Championships:
Iran exits after injury-forced retirement in knockouts
Iran’s campaign at the FIVB Beach Volleyball U18 World Championships came to a premature end on Saturday after an injury forced the national team to retire from its first knockout-round match against Colombia in The Hague, Netherlands.
Having finished third in Pool A to qualify for the round of 24, the Iranian duo of Amin Vakili and Amirreza Jamshidi lost the opening set 21-19 and was trailing 16-7 in the second when Jamshidi was forced to retire through injury.
The Iranian player had already required treatment during the first set and briefly returned to the court. However, he was unable to continue midway through the second set, with Colombia awarded the victory under tournament regulations.
The Iranian pair opened its campaign with a 2-1 (21-16, 20-22, 15-6) victory over Canada’s Bruno Azevedo and Cameron Gibson before suffering a straight-set defeat (21-14, 21-18) to hosts Sven van Groenestein and Kyan Bezemer. Iran then fell 2-1 (18-21, 21-19, 15-12) to Poland’s Karol Lunio and Wojciech Witkowski to finish third in the group.