BEACH VOLLEYBALL: A pair of beach volleyballers thrown together at the last minute have won the women's title at the Australian Grand Slam event at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast.
Adelaide's Becchara Palmer and Manly's Katie Bartoli came together as a pair just three days before the Gold Coast event, with their opening game of the weekend marking the first time they'd ever hit together.
The pairing was the result of injuries to their regular playing partners.
"If we're honest, our first few games were not lovely," Palmer said.
"Maybe as a new pairing we were a bit tentative, a bit nervous and hadn't quite found our mojo. But we got better every match, and our final was definitely our best game."
It was Bartoli's first ever tour title, although she finished with two silver medals with regular partner Pip Soulsby last summer.
"I was 15 when I first started, I'm 23 now, so I'm pretty pumped," she said.
It was also the first Australian title for Palmer since her return to the beach volleyball tour after the London Olympics. Palmer retired after London, but then came out of retirement 12 months later and teamed with another Adelaide player, Zina Stone, with a goal of qualifying for Rio.
But those plans have been thrown into turmoil, with Stone forced to take a break from the sport through injury.
26-year-old Palmer is now desperately trying to find a new partner who will help her qualify for Rio.
In the men's final, New Zealand's Mike Watson and Sam O'Dea followed up their Oceania title from December with a three-set win over Australia's Damien Schumann and Josh Court.
Schumann and Court received three red cards during the match, costing them a point each time.
Two of those red cards came in the third set, which they lost 15-12.
"I think we handled that situation really well," Watson said.
"Typically I'm a person who lets the ref get on top of me, so I just tried to keep out of it and focus on my own game.
"We're kind of in the mix to qualify for the World Championships, and if we can do that it's a big step towards qualifying for the Olympics, so that's a big focus for us."
The final event of the Grand Slam series will be contested at Perth's Scarborough Beach in March.
Volleyball Australia
