Team South Africa’s beach volleyball boys won two of their three matches in the first competitive action of the Region 5 Youth Games at the Deutscher Turn-und Sportverein (DTS) on Thursday, writes Mark Lemke in Windhoek.
The pair of Yashin Naidoo and Jayden Cupido, who represented the boys, won the first match of the programme against Botswana 21-10, 21-14. They began strongly with powerful serves and towering blocks at the net which laid the platform for a dominant first set.
In the second set, the team from Botswana built early momentum with a 5-1 lead, before Naidoo and Cupido took control and saw out the set 21-14 to secure a statement 2-0 victory in the opening Pool match.
Cupido said after the match: “For a first game that felt very good. We were consistent in our shots and blocks, and we communicated well with each other.”
Naidoo then jumped in and added context. “This is the first time we have played together so I think it was amazing how well we gelled out there. It has given us a lot of confidence for the games to come later today and tomorrow.”
That “later” saw the pair sweep to a 2-0 win over Malawi (21-18, 21-12), before they went down 2-0 to hosts Namibia (2117, 21-16).
The girls team featured the pair of Naledi Ganyane and Lindokuhle Langa. They faced the impressive unit of Angola who came out the blocks flying in their opening Pool match.
The South Africans struggled to find their feet in the first set, losing 21-8. The second set showed early promise as they took an early lead. However, the Angolan side powered through and took the second set 21-6 to secure their 2-0 victory.
This loss did not seem to cause discouragement for the TeamSA girls when Ganyane provided her thoughts on the match.
”This was our first time playing together, I have not practiced beach volleyball in a while, and Lindokuhle has not played on the beach before this game, so we are feeling positive because we know we were improving throughout and we are confident we will get better with each game.”
They also lost their second encounter of the day to Zimbabwe, 2-0 (21-7, 21-9).
The beach volleyball teams will be back in action on Friday ahead of Saturday’s knockouts.
Photo: Frennie Shivambu