Tauranga pair snag top-10 finish at worlds
-Tauranga's Kirk Pitman and Jason Lochhead finished a superb ninth at the world championships in Stavanger, Norway, today after being eliminated by 15th-seeded Spaniards Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira Collado.
Tauranga's Kirk Pitman and Jason Lochhead finished a superb ninth at the world championships in Stavanger, Norway, today after being eliminated by 15th-seeded Spaniards Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira Collado.
The New Zealand's 26th seeds went down 21-11, 21-12 in 36 minutes in their last-16 match at the $US1 million ($1.587m) event to miss out on a place in the quarterfinals.
They have advanced to the last 16 after upsetting German 16th seeds Sebastian Dollinger and Mischa Urbatzka in a first round sudden death match yesterday.
Tauranga's Mike Dudson, the national beach volleyball coach who is with the pair in Norway as part of his Prime Minister's Scholarship, said they had played superbly to fight their way through to ninth.
"That game (against Dollinger and Orbatzka) was a bit tight but they showed a lot of composure and came up with the big plays at the end to win it."
The New Zealanders won 21-17 23-21 in 42 minutes to end the first round with three wins and one loss. Pitman and Lochhead have never before finished the championships higher than 17th, with the ninth the best finish ever for a New Zealand men's team.
"The result is good on a whole lot of levels," Dudson said. "Although Kirk and Jas' were third and fourth in a couple of world tour events at the end of last season, this is the worlds and every team is here and peaking."
"They were optimistic going into today's match, given their form, but never really got into a rhythm, while Spain were consistent and almost faultless."
The duo, who narrowly missing qualifying for the Beijing Olympics last year, have had a solid start to the 2009 world tour with two 17th-place finishes in Ttaly and Poland.
