Summer 2022 was busy and exciting for British Volleyball. We are now at the last stretches of the season and have seen our men’s pairs Bello/Bello, Batrane/Bialokoz and women’s Evans/Mumby, competing in many tournaments showing a promising progression in their level of performance.
In the last period, coming off the successful Commonwealth Games winning the bronze medal match against Rwanda, the pair Bello Bello competed their journey on the Pro Tour. They won another bronze medal at the Pro Tour Futures tournament held in Cortegaca, Portugal. After the successful events, they came back to the tour in Cape Town, South Africa to compete at the Elite 16 event, the highest level on the Pro Tour. The pair won both qualification matches, which brought them to the main draw. In the main draw they played in a tough pool against Qatar, pair who won the bronze medal at the last Olympics and were ranked 6th in the world at the time of the tournament, Netherlands, who were 16th in the rankings and against the young Swedish pair who just won the European Championship in Munich this year and were 12th in the rankings. Our British pair Bello/Bello showed an amazing level of performance, managing to take Cherif and Ahmed of Qatar to a tie breaker match. They finished the tournament in 13th position. They have just completed another Elite 16 in Uberlandia, Brasil, where they lost the first match of qualification against Brasil, getting a final 33rd place. With a lot of matches at the highest level under their belt, the Bellos have confirmed a bright future awaits them.
Batrane and Bialokoz had a busy and terrific couple of months. They have competed in Warsaw in September in the Futures event, coming 9th in the final standings. After his event they flew over the Maldives in October to play up in the Challenge event. In the main draw they ranked 2nd in the pool, position that guaranteed them the play off match to access the Round of 16. Their Maldives expedition terminated here a tough match against the Americans Field/Budinger.
From the Maldives, Batrane and Bialokoz flew to Dubai to play two challenge events back to back which secured them a 33rd and 25th place accordingly, finishing both tournaments at the qualification stages. The pair then reached Cape Town as well, to compete in the Elite 16 tournaments as well. They managed to win both qualification matches to get to the main draw. They had a tough pool as well in the main draw and competed against Austria, the Netherlands and Australia, who were 14th, 3rd and 32 in the word ranking accordingly. Batrane and Bialokoz managed to get a fantastic win during the pool play against Pristauz Ermacora of Austria. Unfortunately, this win was not enough to get through the next phase as they came 4th and it was a matter of point ratio as the pool standings were close in wins and set ratios. They concluded with a 13th place, showing a great deal of progression in their performance.
Last but not least, the newly formed pair Evans/Mumby made their first official appearance on the Pro Tour. Mumby came from a positive summer, in which she competed on the Pro Tour and placed 5th at the Commonwealth Games. Evans, on the other hand, came off a positive training period in the United States, where she is currently completing her studies.
Anaya and Daisy competed in the double Challenge event in Dubai, after completing a successful training camp in Modena, Italy. They have completed both tournaments with a solid 25th place, after getting knocked out in the second round of qualification. The games were very close and were lost on very narrow margins. This shows a promising future for this women team, who we will see competing again together on the Pro Tour.