Big splashes in pool
Pro beach: Down Mexico way, Americans Kraft-Cannon and Schalk-Shaw go 2-for-2 during pool play to earn first-round byes
Third-seeded Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon were the only American pair among the six in the field to win their pool during the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Quintana Roo Elite event in Mexico.
Chaim Schalk and James Shaw were the lone USA duo that were in the men’s main draw of the first top-tier international tournament of 2025. And they won their pool, too, earning a bye into the second round of the knockout phase on the gorgeous Playa del Carmen on the Caribbean Sea.
Canadian expatriate Schalk and Shaw, the 6-foot-8 indoor star still new to the sand with rough edges to smooth out, won a qualifying contest that got them into the main mix, then took both of their matches in Pool F.
The world tour Elite tourneys have changed their format to accommodate 24 teams rather than the previous 16 and have modified pool play to have a “winners, winners, losers, losers” scenario after the first round, with the two winners of qualifying for the knockouts. The victor there advances to the Round of 12 (which doesn’t make any sense mathematically, so the FIVB convoluted it) and the loser to the opening round of a dozen teams. The first-round pool losers vie in a winner-advances-to-the-first-KO-round scenario.
Schalk and Shaw needed only 37 minutes to dispatch England’s Bello Bros., Joaquin and Luis Javier, 19 and 17. Their winners pool-play tussle was more contentious, but the 19th-seeded Americans topped 18 seeds Christoph Dressler and Phillipp Waller of Austria in three, by a comfortable 15-6 in the tiebreaker.
Turning to the women, Kraft-Cannon gained momentum (and rest) for the knockout rounds by rolling over 10th-seeded Lithuanian Olympians Monica Paulikiene and Aine Raupetyte 18 and 12 in 32 minutes.
Moving into the first KO matches were USA Olympians Taryn Brasher (nee Kloth) and Kristen Nuss, two-time Olympian Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw, Corinne Quiggle-Chloe Loreen, and Maddie Anderson-Brooke Bauer. Failing to get out of their pools were Toni Rodriguez-Kylie Deberg and Kimberly Hildreth-Teegan Van Gunst (swept by Cheng-Shaw).
Hugely popular and top-seeded TKN (we’ll still call the LSU products by that nickname even through Taryn is a Brasher, not a Kloth, so the mashup doesn’t work in the literal) hit a speed bump in their second pool-play match. They were swept by the Swiss team of 2024 Olympic bronze medalist Tanja Huberli and her new 19-year-old partner, Leona Kernen, 22-20, 21-19.
In another highlight result, the Austrian Klinger sisters, Dorina and Ranja, won their pool by defeating Olympic gold medalists Duda and Ana Patricia of Brazil in three (15-8 in the tiebreaker).
The men’s and women’s knockout round continued on Friday. The round of 12 will send the six winners to the quarterfinals, as well as two losing teams, which will be determined a formula that carries too many caveats to detail here. I will know who advances when I see the pairings on the go-to Beach Volleyball Database website.
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