So close for beach volleyball pair

For the second successive match, the New Zealand women’s beach volleyball pair stood one point from victory, but were not able to get over the line.

In their semi-final against favourites Canada, the New Zealanders – Alice Zeimann and Shauunu Polley – had three match points but ended up losing a marathon three-setter.

And in the subsequent bronze medal play-off against Miller Pata and Shervsyn Toko of Vanuatu, history repeated itself.

The New Zealanders looked on track for a medal when they eased through the first set 21-10.

The second set was much tighter – 12-10 to New Zealand, 15-12 to Vanuatu, 18-18, 19-19. Then New Zealand reached match point, but were not able to finish it off.

The Vanuatu pair fought back and squeaked out the set 22-20 before winning the third set, the tiebreaker, 15-10.

“It sucks not to get the bronze, but we’re proud of our tournament,” Polley said.

Zeimann said it was disappointing to lose such a close match again. “We know we could have been there, but we’ll take a few learnings from this.”