40th CLASSIC SUCCESS

The 41st year of the Weymouth Beach Classic took place this weekend on Weymouth Beach and was another success with great volleyball being played watched by large crowds. The supporters saw some changes to the Centre Court from previous years with the Grandstand seating being replaced with 150 deck chairs but this went down well and was full for most of the key matches.

The Mens event was won by Harry Jones and Piero Muller who won a dramatic three set thriller 10-21, 21-17, 17-15. Harry, who is from Bournemouth, became the first Weymouth Indoor National League player to take the title and is the first person ever to be the son of a previous winner, his dad Andy Jones won the event back in 1987.

The Womens event  started the day on  Centre Court  at 9am with undoubtedly the best  match of the weekend with a dramatic match in the Quarter finals. The match was  between the eventual winners England International Katie Keefe and  New Zealander Alice Zeimann who were playing against 3 time Classic winner Jess Grimson and  another New Zealander Olivia Mac Donald. The clash between the two New Zealander’s who often play together back in New Zealand was dramatic with fantastic back court recoveries and power hitting. Keefe and Zeimann  took the first set 21-18 but then  in the second set both sides had set points as they were roared on by a small early morning crowd and  eventually Keefe and Zeimann edged it to take the match 28-26.

The pair then roared through the semi final and in the final met last year’s winner Maria Sviridova and Yulia Tokarenko. Surprisingly Sviridova and Tokarenko dominated the first set  and won 21-16. However from then on Keefe and Zeimann took control of the match to take the next two sets 21-10, 15-12 to take the title.

At the end of the event Directors Graeme Sawyer and Pete Bennett said ‘ It has been a great weekend and yet again the 200 approx people associated with event have  said how much they have  enjoyed coming to Weymouth for the weekend.  We need to thank ‘ We Are Weymouth’  ‘Ultra Maritime’ and the ‘Mervyn Stewkebury foundation’  for sponsoring the event  without whom it would not  be able to go ahead. We would also like to thank our support team from Weymouth Volleyball  Club who have worked tirelessly all week to  put the event on. After 41 years of being Event Directors we are now going to take a step back  and UKBeach Tour will take on the lead role for the event next year when we hope it will be bigger and better than ever’.

Mo  Kerai from UKBT General Manager said ‘ I| love coming to Weymouth for this event because it is so well organised and the team from the club is so knowledgeable about what needs to be done. I am looking forward to working with them and the sponsors next year’

Jeff Brehaut who refereed the Olympic Beach final in 1996 and was head of referees across the World Tour for many years  was at the event to monitor the quality of refereeing said ‘This is an amazing event and the standards of presentation easily match many European Tour events, well done Weymouth for being able to put this on every year’