Former Dutch indoor star player, Manon Flier Nummerdor, planned on finding a club team after her maternity leave BUT plans changed.
In this interview released by cev.lu, the 2007 Grand Prix Champion and MVP revealed that she could not say no when Marleen Van Iersel invited her to play beach volleyball for the 2017 season.
“Our daughter (with beach player Reinder Nummerdor) had been born for only three or four months when Marleen called me. We had to think about it, but not for really that long. When a player like her invites you to play, you cannot say no. I do not think I would have made the switch with any other partner. I knew it was a great chance to have another sports career.” -Manon
The two time Olympian Marleen storngly believes that Manon will make a good beach player.
“I think she did really well for a first match. She is coming from indoor and practiced for just two months and only one week outside. She learns really fast and will get a lot better, but it is difficult to say how far she can get.”
Manon, on the other hand, knows that she has a lot of learning and playing to do in order to achieve the results they both need.
“I think the experience I have in Volleyball will be very helpful. I also know the skills as I have never been only a hard hitter on indoor. However, honestly, I am not fully convinced that I can be a good Beach Volleyball player yet. I have so much to work on and maybe after that I can show it and convince myself.”
She and her partner Marleen van Iersel may have not won a match in the Main Draw of the Swatch Major Series in Florida but this new beach team from The Netherlands vow to use the lessons they learned from this tourney for the next events.
“We dug deep today, but it wasn’t enough to get us into the knock-out fase 😕 but heads up! Lots of experience in the pocket for this first tournament! And now that we have tasted this level as a team we are hungry for more! Bring it summer of 2017!” Manon & Marleen.