Carpio-Bautista advances to KO stage in China volley

MANILA, Philippines - Filipinas Johanna Carpio and Nerissa Bautista advanced into the knockout stages of the 2010 Tianliheng Asian Beach Volleyball Women’s Championship after finishing second in Pool E last Thursday in Haikou, China.

Seeded 21st in the 23-team tourney, the RP duo split their two assignments in the preliminaries, in which the matches were reduced to one set only by the AVC technical committee due to the approaching super typhoon “Megi.” 

Carpio and Bautista hacked out a 21-13 win over No. 12 Do Thi Hau and Ngo Vo Thanh Loan of Vietnam but yielded a 12-21 setback to No. 5 Kou Naihan and Huimin Chang of Chinese Taipei in Pool E round-robin play.

The Filipinas, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese ended up tied for the top spot with identical 1-1 cards. Chinese Taipei got the No. 1 slot in the pool while the Philippines took the second and last berth to the Round of 16 by virtue of a higher point-scoring ratio against Vietnam. 

“The team was absolutely great today (Thursday). We knew the Chinese Taipei team would be tough so we concentrated very hard on our game plan against Vietnam. The girls put their heart into that game and came up with a big win. They have proven that they can play at this level and be competitive,” RP coach Eric LeCain told The STAR via email.

“I never believed we could get this far. I thank God for giving us another chance to do our best,” Carpio said for her part.

Carpio and Bautista will meet the topnotcher from Pool F, sixth seed Tatyana Mashkova and Irina Tsimbalova of Kazakhstan, in the single-elimination Last 16 stage.