Jude Garcia and Krung Arbasto made sure this will not be the Philippines’ last day in Phuket.
The two-time Beach Volleyball Republic champions completed an upset of eighth-seed Qatar-2 in three sets. They move into the quarterfinals of the 2021 AVC Asian Seniors Beach Volleyball Championships, Thursday at the Bang Tao Beach in Phuket, Thailand.
Garcia and Arbasto kept it tight against Assam Ahmed Mahmoud and Saifeddine Binaziz Elmajid. Then they put on the finishing touches in the deciding set, to win 22-20, 18-21, 15-12, to take their place into the next round. This prevented a wipeout of the Filipino squads.
The standout pair earlier booked their place in the knockout rounds. They won over Singapore’s Kingsley Tay and Melvin Goh Teng Kuan, 26-24, 21-16.
Meanwhile, the two women’s pairs were both booted out of contention after their defeats in the Round of 16.
Sisi Rondina and Bernadeth Pons suffered a two-set loss against Japan’s Hasegawa Aiko and Sakaguchi Yurika, 17-21, 15-21. On the other hand, Genesa Eslapor and Dij Rodriguez absorbed a similar tight defeat from Australia’s Jasmine Fleming and Stefanie Fejes, 18-21, 14-21.
Rodriguez-Eslapor earlier forced a tie at 2-2 after the pool stages with a win over Kazakhstan’s Alina Rachenko and Anastassiya Ukolova, 21-7, 21-19. They then had to settle for the third-seed out of the group for the knockout rounds because of quotient.
For SiPons, they had to earlier pull off a win over Australia’s Alisha Stevens and Jana Milutovinic, 21-15, 24-22, to avert a last-place finish in the group heading into the Round of 16.
AJ Pareja and Henry Pecana became the first Philippine pair to exit the competition after a two-set loss in their final pool match against Narongdet Kangkon and Dunwinit Kaewsai, 9-21, 19-21.
Garcia and Arbasto will take on Iran’s Bahman Salemiinjehboroun and Abolhassan Khakizadeh in the quarterfinals scheduled on Friday.
