Austria and Ukraine book their tickets to the Finals
Beach Nations Cup
Two more countries qualified for the 2025 CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup Finals on Saturday, as Austrian men and Ukrainian women won their Preliminary Phase pools in Riga, Latvia, and will play for the title in four weeks.
The Beach Nations Cup, an exciting ‘country vs country’ competition introduced in 2022, which resembles the Davis Cup in tennis, will have its 2025 Finals held in Espinho, Portugal, from July 17-20, with eight national teams in each gender.
Besides hosts Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Czechia, France, Denmark and Austria are already guaranteed on the men’s side and Spain, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Ukraine have qualified among the women.
Austria qualified dramatically in Riga as the country’s national team overcame hosts Latvia in the point-ratio tie-breaker to come out in first place in Pool B and secure their spot in the Finals.
After defeating Israel on Friday, Austrians and Latvians met on Saturday with the spot in the Finals on the line. The Austrians won the first match, with Julian Hörl and Moritz Pristauz beating Arturs Rinkevics and Ardis Bedritis 2-1 (21-19, 21-23, 15-4), and, despite the 2-0 (21-16, 25-23) defeat of Tim Berger and Timo Hammarberg to reigning European champions Martins Plavins and Kristians Fokerots in the second match of the duel, they still managed to come out on top thanks to their better point ratio.
Julian Hörl“It's really cool that we qualified for the Finals with this win. The conditions were very windy and difficult to play in, but in the end, we handled it well. It was a really close game, so I'm even happier that we were able to win.”
Austrian Beach Volleyball Player
Ukraine prevailed among the women in a more dominant way as the teams from the country won both of their matches against Israeli and Latvian duos between Friday and Saturday at the O-Sands Beach Stadium to top Pool C.
On Friday, Valentyna Davidova and Anhelina Khmil topped Israelis Ronni Lavie and Shiray Danenberg 2-0 (21-8, 21-7), with Maryna Hladun and Tetiana Lazarenko overcoming Daniela Gonzalez and Dafna Maor also in two sets (21-11, 21-13) later.
CEV Beach Nations Cup – Women’s Pool C
The decisive series against the Latvians started with Davidova and Khmil sweeping (21-17, 21-16) Līva Ēbere and Paula Krieva and continued with Hladun and Lazarenko beating Anija Ozolina and Marta Ozolina in the tie-breaker (21-18, 17-21, 15-11).
The last spots in the Finals in each gender will be handed on Sunday, when the last pools, held in Vilnius, will have their winners - Lithuania, Croatia, Finland and Norway compete among the women and Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland and Slovenia are the nations fighting to get in the Finals on the men’s side.