Europeans keep excellent form with five medals in Leuven
Futures in Europe
Five European teams returned home with medals from this week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures event in Leuven, Belgium, delivering another successful performance for the continent in their home sand.
Europe got to celebrate a complete medal sweep among the men, with duos from Czechia, Latvia and Austria collecting all three medals in play, while teams from the Netherlands and hosts Belgium took the continent to the women’s podium, earning silver and bronze.
Czechs Jakub Sepka, 22, and Jiri Sedlak, 24, claimed their first title as partners on the Beach Pro Tour in just their seventh tournament, winning all five matches played in Leuven over the week with no sets dropped. In the last of them, the gold medal match, the two topped Latvians Kristians Fokerots and Gustavs Auzinš, the 2022 U19 world champions, 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) to confirm their victory.
The bronze medal match also reunited two duos from the continent and ended with Austrians Tim Berger and Timo Hammarberg prevailing over the Spanish Huerta brothers Alejandro and Javier in straight sets (21-9, 21-17) to make their second-straight podium appearance on the Beach Pro Tour, following a second-place finish in Baden.
The women’s gold medal match in Leuven didn’t go Europe’s way as despite the efforts of Dutch qualifiers Lisa Luini and Desy Poiesz, they couldn’t handle Americans Lexy Denaburg and Deahna Kraft, who took gold with a two-set (21-19, 21-16) victory. It was still a remarkable tournament for the duo from the Netherlands, which won six out of their eight matches over the week, to secure a medal in their first tournament as partners.
Belgium’s top team of Sarah Cools and Lisa Van Den Vonder took the host country to the podium in third place, repeating the result they obtained in Leuven in 2021. In the bronze medal match, the two downed Americans Madelyne Anderson and Brook Bauer 2-0 (22-20, 21-16) to maintain their excellent form in the season, winning their third medal in as many events.
The Beach Pro Tour will be back in Belgium in two weeks, from August 1-4, when the country’s capital Brussels will host the next Beach Pro Tour Futures event in Europe, another double-gender tournament.
The Beach Pro Tour Futures events in Europe are run by the CEV in close cooperation with Volleyball World and provide teams from the continent with several opportunities to compete and gain valuable international ranking points.