Volleyball Empowerment finals for both genders at Spiez Futures

Four teams receiving support viathe transformative FIVB Volleyball Empowerment programme reached the women’s and men’s finals at last week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures event in Spiez, Switzerland.

In the women’s gold medal match, Ukraine’s Diana Lunina and Tetiana Lazarenko outplayed Czechia’s Michaela Brinkova and Karin Zolnercikova, while Marco Krattiger and Florian Breer emerged victorious from the all-Swiss men’s final (pictured in the main photo, credits: cev.eu) against Quentin Metral and Yves Haussener.

A tense moment during the women’s final in Spiez (Photo credits: cev.eu)

Through an ongoing Memorandum of Understanding with Ukraine, the FIVB is currently covering Lunina and Lazarenko’s participation expenses, including travel, accommodation, food and local transportation for international events. After their silver at the Madrid Futures last month, now 19-year-old Lazarenko, a U21 world champion from two years ago, and her 30-year-old new partner Lunina did even better and took the gold in Spiez. For the recently formed duo, these two tournaments were only their third and the fourth appearances on the Beach Pro Tour together.

To top the podium in Switzerland, fourth-seeded Lunina and Lazarenko went unbeaten through all five of their matches in Spiez, starting off with a 2-1 (22-24, 21-4, 15-10) comeback against home pair Livia Stolz and Julie Bovet, and a 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) shutout of Lithuania’s Ieva Vasiliauskaite and Erika Kliokmanaite in pool play. Two more straight-set victories followed: 2-0 (25-23, 25-11) over Czechia’s Kylie Neuschaeferova and Marketa Svozilova in the quarterfinals and 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) over Germany’s Nele Schmitt and Paula Schurholz in the semifinals. In Sunday’s final, the Ukrainians came back from a set down to master a 2-1 (16-21, 21-9, 15-10) victory over 14th-seeded Brinkova and Zolnercikova.

Benefitting from a 12-month coach support project through Volleyball Empowerment, under the mentorship of Argentinean coach Sebastian Menegozzo, the Czech pairing of 20-year-old Brinkova and 21-year-old Zolnercikova crowned their international debut as a team with silver, making the entire journey from Thursday’s qualifiers to Sunday’s final in Spiez. They went on a streak of six wins in a row, which led them to a 2-0 (23-21, 21-15) semifinal victory over second-seeded Georgia Johnson and Jasmine Fleming of Australia.

After successfully tackling the qualifiers, Brinkova and Zolnercikova managed three tie-breaker wins over third-seeded Australians Tara Phillips and Brittany Kendall, and Sweden’s Tina Thurin and Sanna Thurin in pool play, and over Switzerland’s Leona Kernen and Annique Niederhauser in the quarterfinals.

Johnson and Fleming took bronze to complete the women’s podium.

The women’s podium in Spiez (Photo credits: cev.eu)

Switzerland also benefits from the Volleyball Empowerment coach support since the Polish specialist Lukasz Fijalek has also been integrated into the coaching team of the men's programme of Swiss Volley since November. Also enjoying support from the home crowd in Spiez, two Swiss pairs reached the men’s final, in which second-seeded Krattiger and Breer celebrated a 2-0 (21-16, 21-19) victory over top-seeded Metral and Haussener to earn their second medal and first gold on the Beach Pro Tour.

24-year-old Breer, a U17 world champion in 2014, and 28-year-old Krattiger, making up the current number 26 team in the FIVB World Ranking, mastered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-14) shutout of Australia’s D'Artagnan Potts and Garang Anyang and a hard-fought 2-1 (19-25, 22-20, 16-14) comeback against Austria’s Timo Hammarberg and Tim Berger to win Pool B. They then followed up with emphatic sweeps of their knockout matches – 2-0 (21-14, 21-14) against England’s Niko Gleed and Harry Jones in the quarterfinals and 2-0 (21-10, 21-14) against Poland’s Piotr Janiak and Jedrzej Brozyniak in the semis – to reach the final.

Meanwhile, Metral and Haussener shut out pretty much the same set of opponents on the way to the semifinals: the Englishmen and the Poles in pool play, and the Austrians in the quarterfinals. They lost their first set of the tournament in their semifinal encounter with Finland’s Santeri Siren and Jyrki Nurminen, but still managed to win the match by 2-1 (17-21, 21-17, 15-12) to secure their third Beach Pro Tour podium, after claiming two Futures gold medals during last year’s inaugural season.

Janiak and Brozyniak took the bronze after beating the Finns by 2-0 (21-14, 21-15) for the third place to celebrate their third podium on the Tour as well.

Left to right: Yves Haussener, Florian Breer, Quentin Metral and Marco Krattiger (Photo credits: cev.eu)

A total of 56 teams representing 24 different countries from all five Continental Confederations took part in the tournament.

Beach Pro Tour 2023 full event schedule