By ADRIAN STEWART CO

Negrense Alexa Polidario and Jenny Gaviola fell short of reaching the main draw of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour at the Nuvali Sands Court by the Ayala Land in the City of Santa Rosa, Laguna on Wednesday, October 15.

Gaviola and Polidario had a good chance of pulling off an upset but squandered the opportunity against Canada’s Amanda Harnett and Devin Corah, 15-21, 16-21.

“This is our first time [playing] together in an international competition, but we gave it our best, although we failed to snatch the opportunity,” the 26-year-old Gaviola said.

“We learned a lot of things in this match as we saw how our opponents adjusted when they trailed,” she added.

The 27-year-old Polidario, of the Philippine Army, also said they would learn from the experience to get better ahead of the Thailand 33rd Southeast Asian Games in December.

“It was a bad moment. We lost our focus on this mental game,” Alas Pilipinas’ Brazilian beach volleyball coach Joao “Kioday” Luciano Simao Barbosa said.

“It’s the same result with our men’s game earlier,” he added.

In the men’s qualifiers, Larry John Francisco and Edwin Tolentino suffered a 15-21, 10-21 loss to Freddie Bialokoz and Issa Batrane of England while Ronniel Rosales and Rancel Varga fell to Canada’s Luke Se Greeff and Martin Litch, 17-21, 15-21./ASC, WDJ