Local team fail to win Beach Volleyball Championships

THE R60 000 National Beach Volleyball Championships at Durban’s New Beach over the weekend ended in disappointment for KZN’s Jamine Naidoo and Quwin Naidoo.

The provinces number one men’s beach volleyball team from Chatsworth were unlucky as they were edged out on a points difference in the round robin stage.

Making their debut at this level of competition and contending with windy conditions on the opening day was a daunting task for the youngsters.

Notwithstanding the pressures from their more experienced opponents, the duo went on to secure two wins out of four matches.

One of their losses by a narrow margin was to 2012 London Beach Volleyball Olympians Freedom Chiya and Grant Goldschmidt, who were the eventual winners of the tournament.

Venai Naicker, the lads’ coach, said Jamine and Quwin would be hard at training over the next two months to ‘up’ their performance.

Meanwhile, the women’s and men’s finals were dazzling encounters that entertained the crowd with a brand of beach volleyball rarely seen on the Durban shores.

The excitement grew to fever pitch as both the women and men’s number one seeds struggled to gain the upper hand in a tournament that they were tipped to win with ease.

After securing a 22-20 first set win, the number one seeds, Palesa Sekhonyana and Randy Williams, were thrashed 21-6 by Kirsten Pocock and Judith Augoustides who went on to claim the final set with a 15-9 win to walk away with the R8 000 winners’ cheque.

The all Cape Town men’s final between top seeds Leo Williams and Jerome Fredericks and arch rivals Freedom Chiya and Grant Goldschmidt was a nail biting affair.

Chiya and Goldschmidt captured the opening set with a 21-19 margin.

The second set went the way of the favourites by a 21-18 margin.

The explosive deciding set could have gone either way had it not been for Chiya’s “never say die” attitude in recovering attacks that were directed into the open spaces in their back court.

The crowd erupted with joy when Chiya fired the final shot that secured them a 16-14 win and the R8 000 prize money.