Heavyweights make it to the semifinals in Düsseldorf
EuroBeachVolley
Four teams formed by players with Olympic experience and who have won continental medals before are set to compete for the men’s title of the 2025 CEV EuroBeachVolley on Sunday in Düsseldorf.
The Netherlands’ Stefan Boermans/Yorick de Groot and Alexander Brouwer/Steven van de Velde, Sweden’s David Åhman/Jonatan Hellvig and Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum are the candidates to win gold in the 33rd edition of the tournament, which will have its final chapters unfolding on Sunday at the Rochus Club.
Boermans/De Groot and Åhman/Hellvig will meet in the first semifinal, scheduled for 10:30 local time, with Brouwer/Van de Velde and Mol/Sørum dueling in the second, at 11:45. The winners will play in the gold medal match, at 17:15, while the losers will battle for bronze at 16:00.
The silver medalists of the 2021 EuroBeachVolley, Boermans and De Groot, who represented their country at the Paris 2024 Olympics, earned their spot in the semifinals by producing a massive comeback against French Téo Rotar and Arnaud Gauthier-Rat and winning their quarterfinal match 2-1 (13-21, 21-17, 15-12).
Yorick de Groot“We a had a lot of difficulties in the first set, but when the rain stopped, we started playing better. We worked hard to come back in the second set and, luckily in the end, with some good serves and a couple of blocks we won it. We slowly found our rhythm in the third set and the support of the crowd also helped us a lot.”
Dutch Beach Volleyball Player
Their semifinal opponents, Åhman and Hellvig are two-time EuroBeachVolley champions, having won the tournament in 2022 and 2023, and are the reigning Olympic champions after having won gold in Paris last year. In the quarterfinals, they faced Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler, who were their opponents in the gold medal match at the French capital one year ago, and triumphed in straight sets (21-19, 21-16).
David Åhman“It was a super fun game at the Olympics and we get to play Ehlers and Wickler so many times, and it’s always fun. It was nice to play them here in Germany as well, with the home crowd behind them.”
Swedish Beach Volleyball Player
Dutch and Swedish have met in six international matches before their Sunday EuroBeachVolley semifinal encounter, and the Olympic champions have won five of them.
2025 CEV EuroBeachVolley – Men
New Dutch team faces four-time champions
A new team in 2025, Brouwer and Van de Velde have experienced great success with other partners as while the former represented the Netherlands at the Rio 2016 (where he won bronze) and Tokyo 2020 Olympics and took bronze in the 2017 EuroBeachVolley, the latter is a Paris 2024 Olympian and made it to the podium of the last year’s edition of the continental tournament, ranking third.
In the quarterfinals, they swept (22-20, 21-17) reigning world champions Ondřej Perušič and David Schweiner of Czechia to make it to the medal rounds in Düsseldorf.
Alexander Brouwer“It was a good match. The Czechs are tough opponents, but I’m happy with the confidence Steven gave to our team and that we kept believing in our strengths.”
Dutch Beach Volleyball Player
Their opponents Mol and Sørum are four-time EuroBeachVolley champions (2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021) and two-time Olympic medalists, having won gold in Tokyo 2020 and bronze in Paris 2024. They returned to the tournament’s semifinals for the first time since 2022 with a two-set (21-17, 21-15) victory over Austrians Tim Berger and Timo Hammarberg in the quarterfinals.
Anders Mol"The Austrians have proven to be really strong and have a great future. We look forward to many, many battles against them, because it's a lot of fun every time we play them."
Norwegian Beach Volleyball Player
Sunday’s match will be the first involving the two teams at the international level.