Nelson Mail: Sarah Baldwin and Erin McCulloch had to work hard to claim the women's crown at Saturday's Brightwater beach volleyball tournament. The Blue Chip Nelson pair were taken to three sets by the Biopaints duo of Anna Chamberlain and Jess Harris before clinching the title.
They dropped the opening set 12-21 before recovering to win the next 21-18 and the decider 15-9.
Baldwin and McCulloch beat Jelena Vucinic and Melissa Duff 21-10 21-8 and Chamberlain and Harris beat Nadia Hylkema and Ashleigh Hancock 21-13 21-11 in their respective semifinals.

In the weekend Jess and I played in the Sumner Grand Slam event. First up we played Sarah Baldwin and Erin McCulloch, our training partners - we lost in 2 sets. Next we played Bayley Gair and her new partner Pauline Walsh, it was a tight game all the way but eventually we lost in the 3rd set. Our last pool game was against Michelle Kenny and MC Breuhaut, the first set was really close with us winning it 26-24 and then we went on to win the second set.

In the quarter final we won against Fran Edmonson and Sascha Constable in 2 sets. We played Bailey and Pauline again in the semi final winning in 3 sets. In the final we met Michelle and MC, winning the first set, losing the second set, and losing the final set 17-19.

I was really happy with this result as Jess has only been playing beach volleyball for a week now, and the conditions were very windy making it difficult to control the ball.