Beach volleyball: Europeans too good, but Kiwis lift their ranking

Brazil's Maria Clara Salgado and Carolina Solberg Salgado celebrate a winning point during yesterday's final. Picture / Richard Robinson

Behind his sand-laced sunglasses Kirk Pitman has a vision.

It involves the Olympics, Beijing and the year 2008.

To those who know the 23-year-old from Whangarei this Olympic dream is realistic.

Pitman and his partner Jason Lochhead have made serious inroads in the beach volleyball world rankings. They teamed up at the start of last year where Pitman was ranked 90-something. Twelve months later they are an impressive 38th.

Yesterday in Auckland they proved a further charge up the rankings this year is not out of the question in the final event on the More FM Pro Beach Volleyball Tour.

The New Zealanders ousted second seeds Christoph Dieckmann and Julius Brink of Germany 2-1 in the semifinals before succumbing to Europe's towering combination of Sascha Heyer, ranked seventh in the world, and Emiel Boersma in the final, 2-0.

The match was close, with the Europeans claiming the first set 24-22 and the second 21-18.

"It is tough, usually the smaller guys tend to have better skills but these guys have got good skills and they are tall ... so they have got everything," Pitman said.

It was the first match back for Lochhead, who had missed the first four events of the tour through injury.

Pitman teamed with veteran Craig Seuseu for those events and claimed three tour wins.

Pitman said there were plenty of positives to come out of this year's tour, one of which was beating Dieckmann, who finished fifth in last year's Olympics.

The New Zealanders will now continue their buildup to the start of the world tour, which begins in South Africa and Brazil in April.

Teams have to be ranked in the top 24 to qualify for the Olympics. Qualification starts next year.

The last time New Zealand was represented at the Olympics was by the Hamilton brothers, Reid and Glenn, in 1996. Veterans Craig Seuseu and Tom Eade just missed out on qualifying in 2000.

Americans Tracy Lindquist and Claire Robertson caused the upset in the women's final yesterday, edging out the favourites, Brazil sisters Maria Clara and Carolina Salgado.

The Brazilians claimed the first set 21-15 but couldn't match their determined opponents in the second set, losing 18-21.

The Americans made the stronger start in the deciding set, finding the gaps in the sisters' defence.

With a small band of vocal Brazilian supporters cheering them on, the Salgado sisters fought back, but they were unable to match the power of the Americans, who took the final set 15-12.

The Salgados finished the five-event tour with three wins and two seconds.

"We have played them five or six times in the last three of four tournaments and they beat us every time," Lindquist said.

"So today we changed our game plan a bit. We just wanted to concentrate on getting our serves deep and blocking a little more and putting some pressure on them."

Not a bad tour win for the Americans, who didn't actually know each other until a few weeks ago.

Lindquist usually teams up with her sister, but she was unavailable for the tournament.

So when someone told her of Robertson's ability she phoned her up and asked if she would like to play with her on the New Zealand tour.

It is both Lindquist's and Robertson's first trip to New Zealand and both appear to have been captivated.

"I don't think there is any place where anyone is nicer than the Kiwis."