Beach Volleyball

Norway and the Netherlands claim the first semifinal spots

Beach Nations Cup Finals

Article Fri, Jul 18 2025
Author: Guilherme Torres

Norway and the Netherlands are the first countries guaranteed in the men’s semifinals of the 2025 CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup Finals and are now just two wins away from the title of the tournament held in Espinho.

Norway made it through pool play with an undefeated campaign of six victories

Pool play came to an end for the men on Friday at the Praia da Baía and Norwegians and Dutch ended it at the top of their pools, advancing directly to the semifinals. Four other countries, which ranked second and third in their pools, continue alive and will meet in the quarterfinals on Saturday.

The duels will be Spain vs. Portugal and Austria vs. Lithuania. The winners will play against Norway and the Netherlands in Sunday’s semifinals. The gold medal match will also be held on Sunday.

After getting a pair of wins against Austria on Thursday, the Norwegian teams continued in great form on Friday, getting four more victories to top Pool B. The Beach Volley Vikings had Denmark as their first opponents and prevailed with Hendrik Mol and Mathias Berntsen topping Nicolai Hovmann and Christian Andersen 2-1 (21-19, 23-25, 15-11) and Anders Mol and Christian Sørum sweeping (21-13, 21-10) Mads Møllgaard and Kristoffer Abell.

CEV Beach Nations Cup Finals – Men

A few hours later, the Norwegians faced hosts Portugal and got a pair of victories to secure the top spot in the pool. Hendrik Mol and Berntsen got the job started with a two-set (21-15, 21-11) victory over the brothers Gonçalo and Tomas Sousa and Anders Mol and Sørum completed it, taking Hugo Campos and João Pedrosa down also in straight sets (25-23, 21-16).

Norway were first in the pool with 12 points, followed by Austria, with nine, Portugal, with eight, and Denmark, with seven.

Dutch complete perfect pool campaign

In Pool A, the Netherlands completed their flawless pool campaign with victories over duos from defending champions France on Friday. The Dutch had triumphed against teams from Lithuania and Spain on Thursday, on the first day of matches in Espinho.

Olympic medalist Alexander Brouwer and partner Steve van de Velde downed Kéran Duval and Calvin Aye in two sets (21-14, 21-8) in the first match of the duel and Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot completed the day with a sweep (23-21, 21-16) of Téo Rotar and Arnaud Gauthier-Rat.

With 12 points earned, the Dutch finished first in the pool. Spain were second with nine, Lithuania advanced in third place with eight and France were eliminated with seven.

Introduced in the European beach volleyball calendar in 2022, the Beach Nations Cup is an exciting ‘country vs country’ competition which resembles the Davis Cup in tennis.

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