Malintha Yapa and Indika Tyronne were the only Sri Lankan pair to win a solitary game at the 20th Asian beach volleyball tournament in Songkla, Thailand.
Sri Lanka fielded two teams (men’s and women’s) categories participating in the tournament organized by the Asian Volleyball Confederation. The women’s team was captained by Dinesha Prasadini while the men’s team was captained by Malintha Yapa.
Yapa and Tyronne managed to win the game against Malaysia to enter the main draw.
The women’s team comprised Kasuni Tharuka, Deepika Bandara and Chathurika Weerasinghe and was coached by Priyantha Rajapakse. The men’s team comprised Indika Tyronne, Anjana Sandeepana and Ashen Rashmika and was coached by Jude Mahesh Perera who was a former Sri Lanka player.
Men’s Category:
The two men’s teams had to come through the qualifying round where only Tyronne and Yapa made it through winning 21-9, 21-15 against Ahmed and Ali from Maldives. But Ashen and Anjana lost to Kangkon and Adisorn of Thailand 21-17, 23-21.
Tyronne and Yapa met Raoufi and Mirzali from Iran in group G in the main draw. The Iranian pair won the first set 21-14 but the Sri Lankan pair bounced back to win the next set 18-21. However, in the deciding third set the Sri Lankan pair were not able to match the Iranians and lost 15-10 to finish in third place.
In their next match in the group the duo faced off against the Japanese pair of Gottsu and Ageba and once again lost with scores of 21-14, 21-18. The Japanese pair finished fourth in the tournament.
The two women’s teams went straight to the main draw but lost each of their two matches with disappointing performances. Deepika and Kasuni lost 21-12, 21-14 to Kou and Liu from Chinese Taipei and 21-6, 21-12 to the Australian pair of Weller and Kendall.
The other Sri Lankan women’s pair Dinesha and Chathurika lost 21-10, 21-14 to Bell and Ngauamo from Australia while in the next group game they lost 21-18, 21-14 to Yu and Pan from Chinese Taipei to be eliminated from the tournament.