beach volleyball

Sherysyn Toko and Miller Pata defeated the New Zealand duo of Shaunna Polley and Alice Zeimann in a thrilling deciding third set in Birmingham on Monday morning.

The pair lost the first set 10-21, but edged the second 22-20, and won the decider 15-10.

The Vanuatu team had topped its group ahead of England, and beaten Cyprus in two sets in the quarter-finals.

However, they lost to Australia in the last four to set up the bronze-medal play-off.

Miller Pata and Sherysyn Toko recorded another outstanding win after defeating the Republic of Cyprus  2-0 (29-27, 30-28) in the quarterfinals.

The duo have been impressive so far in the games and have remained undefeated.

Pata and Toko will be playing against Australia in the semifinals tomorrow.

Miller Pata and Sherysyn Toko defeated England 2-0 (21-9, 21-19) in their third pool game.

Pata and Toko have put in yet another strong performance against Daisy Mumby and Jessica Grimson to take the game in straight sets.

The duo will take on the Republic of Cyprus in the quarterfinal at 1.30am, tomorrow (Vanuatu Time).

The team progressed after they defeated Solomon Islands 2-0 (21-8, 21-7) in their second pool game.

Miller Pata and Sherysyn Toko displayed yet another strong performance against Hannah U’una and Rose Gwali to take the game in straight sets.

Vanuatu will take on England in their final pool match.

The game is scheduled to be held at 6am on Friday (Vanuatu Time).

The 2018 Bronze medal winners are in Pool C in the Women’s competition with England, Solomon Islands and Scotland.

Vanuatu will meet Scotland in their first match on Sunday 31 July.

Vanuatu will be coming up against familiar opponents in Canada and Australia as well as facing possible threats from traditional rivals New Zealand and even the host nation England.

The duo started the tournament on the reserves list for the Qualification Games, a team pulled out, Vanuatu was then added to the Qualification Tournament.

They were unbeaten in the Qualification Tournament and then moved into the Main Draw Tournament, and won their pool games, still undefeated.

Vanuatu beat Italy in the Final, 2 weeks ago the Italian team came 5th at the Beach Volleyball World Championships and are currently ranked 38th in the world

Pacific Mini Games 2022

The 2022 Pacific Mini Games took place from 17-25 June, in Saipan, Northern Marianas, with the 5-day Beach Volleyball tournament taking place throughout last week.

The Vanuatu BV squad had both a Women’s and a Men’s team competing - Loti Joe and Majabelle Lawac with Stivano Banga and James Chilia.

With the Women’s team historically good performers in this 4-yearly regional event, there were expectations they would once again finish in medal contention.

The Vanuatu Association of Sports and National Olympic will screen the list and hand it over to Vanuatu beach volleyball trainers and coaches.

VBV will take a senior male and female teams to Northern Marianas.

VBC Tevent Manager Isaac Mael said, “During the Tafea day and the Torba day we had organized two tournaments and we identified some male players and they are continuing their trainings back to their respective islands. We will organize a tournament in which they all will be participating and we will select the short list.”

The top pairing of Miller Pata and Sherysyn Toko were beaten in three sets by Japan's Akiko Hasegawa and Azusa Futami 19-21, 21-19, 7-15.

Meanwhile Vanuatu's second team of Loti Joe and Majabelle Lawac went down in straight sets, 10-21, 17-21, against Chiyo Suzuki and Yurika Sakaguch.

The result bring an end to Vanautu's Tokyo 2020 qualification journey, while Japan advance to the final four in the women's draw, with the winner securing the final berth at next month's Summer Games.

Ahead of the final round of qualifying games in Thailand, set to begin on June 25th, the team has already embarked upon a journey worth remembering.