BEACH VOLLEYBALL - Pair taking best shot at NZ Open

Northland's Suzy McAsey and Lenna Milton are hoping to cap off this year's Beach Volleyball Pro Tour in style by earning a place at the New Zealand Open at Stanley St, Auckland, this weekend.
The pair need to qualify in the top four at the Mairangi Bay qualifying tournament on Thursday.
To do so, the women are looking to produce what they believe they have been missing in their four Pro-Tour events to date - consistency.
"We played the Australians (Alice Rohkamper and Heike Jensen) at Ohope last week and played well enough to give them a fright; but then we'll play lesser teams and struggle, so we've been very inconsistent so far," Mrs McAsey said.
The pair has come up with some good finishes, but qualifying for the Stanley St event will see the women achieve their goal for the season - a top eight New Zealand ranking, which would be a good effort for their first season together.
"We're sitting just outside that (ranking) at the moment.
"Apart from maybe one team, the rest of the teams are pretty even. They've all beaten each other on this tour, so it's a matter of who can do it on the day."
The top four ranked Kiwi teams and the four international teams have already qualified with four qualifier spots available.
Mrs McAsey said they have been enjoying being involved with the beach volleyball tour this summer.
"It hasn't been going too badly considering the amount of time we've both had to put into practise," she said.
Mrs McAsey is a veteran of several tours, but for Ms Milton, it is her first series on sand.
"I've played lots of beach over the years and I'd been wanting to get back into it because I had a baby last year; but Lenna had never played beach, just indoor, and she was keen to try so we played the warm-up tournaments and got into it," Mrs McAsey said.
In previous years, she has spent up to six weeks taking part in lead-up tournaments and training camps to prepare for the two-week tour. But that wasn't an option this year.
"That was a lifetime ago ... both of us are mums now, and we were probably only getting maybe two hours a week on the sand leading up to a tournament, whereas before I would have been doing that every day."
The pair finished in 13th equal place at the Mount Maunganui tournament on Sunday with two wins and two losses - the same position the women finished in at the Ohope tournament.
"But if you take the overseas teams out of the equation, then we're just outside the eight. So let's hope we can find some consistency on Thursday," Mrs McAsey said.