Chacon & Chacon and Elazar & Cuzmiciov snatch Futures golds in Thailand

Alaina Chacon & Morgan Chacon made it to their third consecutive podium at their fourth Beach Pro Tour appearance as a team, after the Mount Maunganui Futures bronze and the Coolangatta Futures gold in March. The seventh-seeded Americans had to take the detour route to the Songkhla women’s gold after losing the Pool B final. In the knockouts, they started with three straight-set wins, including a 2-0 (21-19, 21-11) sweep of their semifinal against 11^th-seeded Salinda Mungkhon & Samitta Simarongnam of Thailand. In the gold medal showdown, however, Chacon & Chacon had a tight three-set battle with eighth-seeded Ren Matsumoto & Non Matsumoto. The Japanese opponents pushed them deep into overtime in the tie-breaker, before the American duo could triumph with a 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 20-18) victory.

Ren & Non matched their result from the 2022 Songkhla Futures when they earned their only previous Beach Pro Tour podium. To secure the team’s second silver on the Tour, the Japanese produced four back-to-back wins in Thailand, crowned with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) semifinal victory over Yu Tong & Jiang Kaiyue.

Seeded fifth in the main draw, the pair of 20-year-old Chinese athletes picked up the bronze, their third Beach Pro Tour medal as a team, after the Qidong and Qingdao Futures silvers last year. In the third place match, Yu & Jiang battled it out for a 2-1 (24-22, 22-24, 15-8) victory over Salinda & Samitta.

28 men’s teams and 28 women’s teams representing 24 different countries took part in the Songkhla Futures. The next Futures events will be held in Valencia, Spain from April 30 to May 4 and in Nuvali, Philippines from May 1 to 4.