The international beach volleyball season 2023 came to an end with the Beach Pro Tour Finals played in Doha, Qatar. In the men's tournament Sweden claimed gold, Norway - silver, Brazil -bronze. In the women's edition, the USA won the event, Germany settled for silver, Brazil - bronze.
Men's Beach Pro Tour Finals
The number two team in the men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking, Sweden’s David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig, shut out chart-toppers and defending champions Anders Mol & Christian Sorum of Norway to win the 2023 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Finals in Doha on Saturday. The Swedes improved their Beach Pro Tour medal collection to six golds, two silvers and a bronze.
Meanwhile, reigning Olympic champions Mol & Sorum added the fourth silver to their Tour showcase, which also features seven gold and three bronze medals.
Brazil’s Andre Stein & George Wanderley claimed the Doha Finals bronze, their seventh podium on the Beach Pro Tour.
The first set of the final was relatively one-sided and Ahman & Hellvig won it convincingly. In the second set, the lead went back and forth, but after trailing the Norwegians 17-15, the Swedes managed to register six points in a row, crowned with two back-to-back kill blocks by Hellvig in the last two rallies for a 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) shutout. Hellvig finished with a total of three stuffs towards a match-high 18 points, while Ahman added another 15 points, including one ace. Sorum led the Norwegians with 17 spike kills, while master blocker Mol managed to achieve only a point in this element to tally a total of eight points.
“It feels amazing! It’s just incredible! We fought so hard for this,” Ahman said right after the match. “We played them in the group and they crushed us, so it feels nice to come back and win this time. It’s always super tough against Norway. They are almost impossible to beat, so we had to play our best to stand a chance.”
“This season has been so good for us. We are so happy that we can bring home the medal for Sweden,” Hellvig added.
The third-place match was also decided in straight sets. George & Andre kept Qatar’s Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan off the podium with a 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) sweep, dominating the net in both offence (33-27 in spike kills) and blocking (5-1 in stuffs).
Andre led the team with 23 points, including five kill blocks and one ace, while George registered 16 points, all in attack. Ahmed topped the charts with 24 points, including three serving aces.
Women's Beach Pro Tour Finals
Taryn Kloth & Kristen Nuss ended the international beach volleyball season as 2023 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Finals champions in Doha. It is the second consecutive time the trophy has returned to the United States after the inaugural event was won by American compatriots Sara Hughes & Kelly Cheng. It was the third high-level gold for Kloth & Nuss this year, after their victories at the La Paz Challenge and the Uberlandia Elite16. That makes a total of five golds for the American pair on the Beach Pro Tour, with the two trophies from 2022. Their total medal count on the Tour improved to eight.
The Finals silver was earned by Germany’s Cinja Tillmann & Svenja Muller. It was their first silver on the Tour, in addition to the one gold and one bronze in their collection.
The bronze went to the number one team in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking, Ana Patricia Ramos & Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) of Brazil. That brings their total Beach Pro Tour count to 14 podiums.
Despite the five aces the Germans piled up during the final, the match was quite a one-sided affair, with unforced errors making the biggest difference towards the Americans’ emphatic 2-0 (21-17, 21-14) success. Taryn Kloth topped the scorers’ chart of the game with 17 points to her name. Her tally included 12 spike kills, three kill blocks and two aces. Kristen Nuss added another 13 points, including one ace. On the German side, Svenja Muller scored 14 times, while Cinja Tillmann finished with 12 points.
“This was match number 92 of the season. It’s been a long season. We started here, we ended here - great job!” Kloth exclaimed after the game. “It was definitely a progression, but we had so many highs and lows. There are so many different memories that we go back to. Sometimes we got to celebrate and sometimes we had to be sad and sometimes we had to work through everything, so it’s been a great long season.”
“That is just absolutely unreal! We take so much pride in representing our country. It’s a credit to the work ethic we put in and to our coach back home and all the support we get,” Nuss added.
In the third-place match, Ana Patricia & Duda claimed a 2-1 (21-13, 18-21, 15-12) win over Australia’s Mariafe Artacho Del Solar & Taliqua Clancy, also capitalizing on the abundant unforced errors of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallists that made the biggest difference in the game.
Ana Patricia led the winners with 25 points, including four kill blocks and an ace, while Duda added another 17 points, all in attack. Clancy piled up an impressive 33 points to top the scorers’ chart of the match.
Source : fivb.com
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