Iran1’s Abolhassan Khakizadeh & Ali Ghorbanpasandi Crowns the 3rd Asian U19 Beach Volleyball Championships in Thailand

Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, July 6, 2021 – Iran completely dashed hopes of the host nation in the 3rd Asian U19 Beach Volleyball Championships when they stole the show in the final men’s encounters.

After losing women’s title, Hosts Thailand suffered a double blow with their gold medal hopefuls Netitorn Muneekul and Wachirawit Muadpha bowing out to stronger Iranians Abolhassan Khakizadeh and Ali Ghorbanpasandi in the men’s showdown.

Netitorn and Wachirawit tried hard to make amends for the first-set loss 18-21, but the Iranians combined exceptionally well for attacks and blocks which saw them run away with the convincing 21-15 win in the second set and the championship.

It was a remarkable success for Khakizadeh and Ghorbanpasandi as the superb Iranian duo did not drop a set en route to claiming the men’s title. They brushed off Thailand3’s Nopphawit Puttharong/Anucha Promdee 2-0 in the quarterfinals and repeated the similar feat with another 2-0 win against Thailand2’s Narakorn Chumaphai/Veerayut Sopati in the semifinals before stunning top seeds Thailand1’s Netitorn/Wachirawit 2-0 in the final clash.

In the third-place playoff earlier, Kazakhstan1’s Darkhan Amanzholov and Damir Lapov were on cloud nine following their 2-0 win against Thailand2’s Narakorn and Veerayut. The Kazakh pairing took the easy first set 21-14 and were leading 17-8 in the second set when the Thais decided to forfeit the game due to the injury problem.