Sisi Rondina and Bernadeth Pons missed out on a potential Cinderella run in the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Challenge after the Alas Pilipinas aces suffered a heartbreaking 18-21, 24-22, 15-12 round-of-24 loss to Switzerland’s Annique Niederhauser and Menia Bentele on Friday night at the Nuvali Sands Court by Ayala Land in Santa Rosa, Laguna.
“It was a sorry loss,” said Rondina. “They [the Swiss] didn’t want to give up.”
The Filipinas appeared poised to advance to Saturday’s round of 16 — and possibly even the quarterfinals — after forcing an extended second set where the Swiss lost their rhythm, committing a string of service and return errors.
But Niederhauser and Bentele managed to recover, sending the match into a deciding set. There, they regrouped and ultimately frustrated the local favorites in the tournament hosted by the Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) led by Ramon “Tats” Suzara.
“We tried our best to close out the match as hard as we could, but it just didn’t go our way,” Rondina said. “We’ll take this loss as a learning experience and come back stronger, especially for the Southeast Asian Games in December.”
Rondina and Pons were the last Philippine pair standing among seven local teams — four women’s and three men’s — competing in the event, which concludes on Sunday.
Still, reaching the round of 24 was already a breakthrough for Philippine beach volleyball.
Earlier in the day, Rondina and Pons made history by defeating Slovenia’s tandem, 21-19, 21-9 — the first-ever victory by any Philippine national team, men’s or women’s, in a Challenge-level tournament of the Beach Volleyball Pro Tour.
“We regret that we couldn’t follow up on our victory this morning [against Slovenia],” Pons said. “But we’re thankful for this wonderful experience at the Challenge level.”
Meanwhile, Kly Orillaneda and Gen Eslapor bowed to USA’s Teegan Van Gunst and Piper Ferch, 19-21, 11-21.
Meanwhile, Sunny Villapando and Dij Rodriguez squandered a 13-8 lead in the second set to fall to Japan’s Sakura Ito and Mayu Sawame, 18-21, 25-27, ending their campaign in the same round.
