ADVERTISEMENT
Manila Bulletin devider Sports devider Volleyball devider Rondina, Pons yield to Swiss pair

Rondina, Pons yield to Swiss pair

Published Oct 18, 2025 09:35 am

At A Glance

  • Sisi Rondina and Bernadeth Pons missed a potential Cinderella run in the Volleyball World Beach Volley Pro Tour Challenge after the Alas Pilipinas aces absorbed a nail-biting 18-21, 24-22, 15-12 round-of-24 loss to Switzerland's Annique Niederhauser and Menia Bentele on Friday night, Oct. 17, at the Nuvali Sands Court by Ayala Land in Santa Rosa, Laguna.
Sisi Rondina and Bernadeth Pons missed a potential Cinderella run in the Volleyball World Beach Volley Pro Tour Challenge after the Alas Pilipinas aces absorbed a nail-biting 18-21, 24-22, 15-12 round-of-24 loss to Switzerland’s Annique Niederhauser and Menia Bentele on Friday night, Oct. 17, at the Nuvali Sands Court by Ayala Land in Santa Rosa, Laguna.
“It was a sorry loss,” Rondina said. “They [Swiss] didn’t want to give up.”
The Filipinas looked poise to reaching the Saturday’s round-of-16—and who knows, the quarterfinals—in the extended second set where the Swiss lost their composure after committing a spare of service and return errors.
But Niederhauser and Bentele survived and sent the match to a decided that saw them regroup further to frustrate the local bets in the tournament hosted by the Philippine National Volleyball Federation led by Ramon “Tats” Suzara.
“We tried our best to close out the match as hard as we could, but it didn’t go that way,” Rondina said. “But we’ll take this loss as a learning experience and we’ll be back stronger especially in the Southeast Asian Games in December.”
Rondina and Pons were the last pair standing among the seven Philippine teams—four women and three men—in the event that ends Sunday.
Making the round of 24, however, was already a breakthrough for Philippine beach volleyball—Rondina and Pons’ 21-19, 21-9 over the Slovenian tandem earlier in the day was the first victory for any national team, men or women, in a Challenge tournament of the Beach Volleyball Tour.
“We regretted that we couldn’t follow up on our victory in the morning [against Slovenia],” Pons said. “But we’re thankful for this wonderful experience in the Challenge level.”
Kly Orillaneda and Gen Eslapor, however, lost to USA’s Teegan Van Gunst and Piper Ferch, 19-21, 11-21, and Sonny Villapando and Dij Rodriguez squandered a 13-8 lead in the second set to yield to Japan’s Sakura Ito and Mayu Sawame, 18-21, 25-27, to exit the tournament that ends Sunday.
ADVERTISEMENT
.most-popular .layout-ratio{ padding-bottom: 79.13%; } @media (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px) { .widget-title { font-size: 15px !important; } }

{{ articles_filter_1561_widget.title }}

{{ item.title }}
.most-popular .layout-ratio{ padding-bottom: 79.13%; } @media (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px) { .widget-title { font-size: 15px !important; } }

{{ articles_filter_1562_widget.title }}

{{ item.title }}
.most-popular .layout-ratio{ padding-bottom: 79.13%; } @media (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px) { .widget-title { font-size: 15px !important; } }

{{ articles_filter_1563_widget.title }}

{{ item.title }}

{{ articles_filter_1564_widget.title }}

{{ item.title }}
.mb-article-details { position: relative; } .mb-article-details .article-body-preview, .mb-article-details .article-body-summary{ font-size: 17px; line-height: 30px; font-family: "Libre Caslon Text", serif; color: #000; } .mb-article-details .article-body-preview iframe , .mb-article-details .article-body-summary iframe{ width: 100%; margin: auto; } .read-more-background { background: linear-gradient(180deg, color(display-p3 1.000 1.000 1.000 / 0) 13.75%, color(display-p3 1.000 1.000 1.000 / 0.8) 30.79%, color(display-p3 1.000 1.000 1.000) 72.5%); position: absolute; height: 200px; width: 100%; bottom: 0; display: flex; justify-content: center; align-items: center; padding: 0; } .read-more-background a{ color: #000; } .read-more-btn { padding: 17px 45px; font-family: Inter; font-weight: 700; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle; border: 1px solid black; background-color: white; } .hidden { display: none; }
function initializeAllSwipers() { // Get all hidden inputs with cms_article_id document.querySelectorAll('[id^="cms_article_id_"]').forEach(function (input) { const cmsArticleId = input.value; const articleSelector = '#article-' + cmsArticleId + ' .body_images'; const swiperElement = document.querySelector(articleSelector); if (swiperElement && !swiperElement.classList.contains('swiper-initialized')) { new Swiper(articleSelector, { loop: true, pagination: false, navigation: { nextEl: '#article-' + cmsArticleId + ' .swiper-button-next', prevEl: '#article-' + cmsArticleId + ' .swiper-button-prev', }, }); } }); } setTimeout(initializeAllSwipers, 3000); const intersectionObserver = new IntersectionObserver( (entries) => { entries.forEach((entry) => { if (entry.isIntersecting) { const newUrl = entry.target.getAttribute("data-url"); if (newUrl) { history.pushState(null, null, newUrl); let article = entry.target; // Extract metadata const author = article.querySelector('.author-section').textContent.replace('By', '').trim(); const section = article.querySelector('.section-info ').textContent.replace(' ', ' '); const title = article.querySelector('.article-title h1').textContent; // Parse URL for Chartbeat path format const parsedUrl = new URL(newUrl, window.location.origin); const cleanUrl = parsedUrl.host + parsedUrl.pathname; // Update Chartbeat configuration if (typeof window._sf_async_config !== 'undefined') { window._sf_async_config.path = cleanUrl; window._sf_async_config.sections = section; window._sf_async_config.authors = author; } // Track virtual page view with Chartbeat if (typeof pSUPERFLY !== 'undefined' && typeof pSUPERFLY.virtualPage === 'function') { try { pSUPERFLY.virtualPage({ path: cleanUrl, title: title, sections: section, authors: author }); } catch (error) { console.error('ping error', error); } } // Optional: Update document title if (title && title !== document.title) { document.title = title; } } } }); }, { threshold: 0.1 } ); function showArticleBody(button) { const article = button.closest("article"); const summary = article.querySelector(".article-body-summary"); const body = article.querySelector(".article-body-preview"); const readMoreSection = article.querySelector(".read-more-background"); // Hide summary and read-more section summary.style.display = "none"; readMoreSection.style.display = "none"; // Show the full article body body.classList.remove("hidden"); } document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => { let loadCount = 0; // Track how many times articles are loaded const offset = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]; // Offset values const currentUrl = window.location.pathname.substring(1); let isLoading = false; // Prevent multiple calls if (!currentUrl) { console.log("Current URL is invalid."); return; } const sentinel = document.getElementById("load-more-sentinel"); if (!sentinel) { console.log("Sentinel element not found."); return; } function isSentinelVisible() { const rect = sentinel.getBoundingClientRect(); return ( rect.top < window.innerHeight && rect.bottom >= 0 ); } function onScroll() { if (isLoading) return; if (isSentinelVisible()) { if (loadCount >= offset.length) { console.log("Maximum load attempts reached."); window.removeEventListener("scroll", onScroll); return; } isLoading = true; const currentOffset = offset[loadCount]; window.loadMoreItems().then(() => { let article = document.querySelector('#widget_1690 > div:nth-last-of-type(2) article'); intersectionObserver.observe(article) loadCount++; }).catch(error => { console.error("Error loading more items:", error); }).finally(() => { isLoading = false; }); } } window.addEventListener("scroll", onScroll); });
Join Our Newsletters

Sign up by email to receive news.

© 2025 Manila Bulletin The Nation's Leading Newspaper. All Rights Reserved.