BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Experienced Olympian Louise Bawden felt confident in the lead-up to the season-opening FIVB World Tour event in China that she and partner Taliqua Clancy were ready to take on the best.
But she also knew until they actually felt the Fuzhou sand between their toes, they wouldn’t really know where they stood.
After all, Australia’s top ranked beach volleyball combination had been beaten at their final outing on the domestic tour.
“It was definitely disappointing not to finish off the event in Perth, but we were really pleased with the training block we put in this summer,” Bawden said on the eve of the Fuzhou Open.
History now shows her confidence was not misplaced. Bawden and Clancy went into the tournament seeded fifth, and breezed through their pool in style.
They dropped just the one set as they brushed aside teams from Brazil, Austria and Russia en route to the next round.
They then dug deep to see off the 15th seeded Americans, Summer and Fopma, in three sets, booking a quarter-final date against the formidable USA combination of Walsh and Ross.
The Australians took the opening set 21-18, but then lost the arm-wrestle that followed over the next two sets to bow out in fifth place overall.
“Taliqua and I have really built on our teamwork and synergy on court,” Bawden said.
“We are really enjoying our on-court energy and connection, and that is allowing us to bring out our strengths and stay composed under pressure.
“We are really looking forward to our next opportunity to play.”
Of the other Australian teams competing In Fuzhou, it was the unheralded Western Australian pairing of Casey Grice and Cole Durant who had tongues wagging.
Durant, the lanky long-armed blocker from Perth’s northern beaches, and Grice, who trains in a school sandpit 400 kilometres from his closest beach, looked well at home alongside the world’s best.
To make the main draw the WA boys first had to see off fellow Australians Joshua Court and Damien Schumann in the qualifiers.
With that hurdle cleared, Durant and Grice then promptly dropped their first game against the American third seeds, before fighting back to beat teams from Germany and Greece to book a place in the next round.
It took the fourth seeded Canadians everything they could muster to beat the Australians in three sets, leaving Grice and Durant frustrated but excited about their efforts.
Australia’s top-ranked men’s pair, Isaac Kapa and Chris McHugh, made a positive start in their first tournament back together after Kapa’s shoulder surgery.
But after winning their opening match, the dropped the next two games and could not get past the pool stage.
ROSS SOLLY
