BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Being no. 1 counts as top seeds triumph in World Tour Final

World rankings don’t always mean that much. Remember how well no. 1-ranked Germany did at the FIFA World Cup?

So it was something of a surprise for the top-ranked men’s and women’s pairs to win – in Germany – at the FIVB World Tour Final in Hamburg as Anders Mol and Christian Sorum (NOR) and Agatha Bednarczuk and Duda Lisboa (BRA) won the seasonal titles.

It was the end of an amazing five weeks for Mol and Sorum, to say the least, as they won four tournaments and $253,000 in 34 days! “I don’t know what has happened the last month,” said Mol. “It’s been unreal. The whole journey has been unreal for us. We did not expect this. Our goal for the season was to take a medal and we did that already in Brazil in Itapema in May. We had to reach for a higher goal and of course that was to take a gold medal.”

They won the Gstaad (SUI) Major, then took the European Championships, the Vienna (AUT) Major and finished with a straight-set win over no. 7-ranked Michal Bryl and Grzegorz Fljalek (POL) in Hamburg.

“We always believed we could do good on the court for sure,” said Sorum. “We knew we had a level, but we had some bad tournaments, had some struggling and we managed to fight through those periods and suddenly it just fell. After Gstaad, everything was just a good flow for us.”

The women’s title went to the top-ranked Brazilian duo of Agatha, 35, and Lisboa, 20, who took 43 minutes to overcome no. 2-ranked Barbora Hermannova and Marketa Slukova (CZE), 21-15, 21-19.

Said Agatha, “The win today caps a very good season for us as we prepare for the future. Our next goal is to return to Hamburg next June for the world championships. We hope we can repeat. It will be tough especially with Laura and Kira returning to competition.”

That would be Olympic champs Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst of Germany, but for now, Agatha can celebrate her seventh World Tour win to go along with the 2016 Olympic silver (with Barbara Seixas) and the 2015 World Championship (also with Seixas).

This year’s World Tour Final paid a massive prize purse of $800,000 – $400,000 per gender – with $150,000 to the winning teams, then $80,000 for second, $50,000-35,000-20,000 (5th and 6th)-15,000 (7th and 8th)-7,500 (9th-10th). Summaries:

FIVB World Tour Final
Hamburg (GER) ~ 14-19 August 2018
(Full results here)

Men: 1. Anders Mol/Christian Sorum (NOR); 2. Michal Bryl/Grzegorz Fijalek (POL); 3. Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak (POL); 4. Julius Thole/Clemens Wickler (GER). Semis: Mol/Sorum d. Thole/Wickler, 2-1; Bryl/ Fijalek d. Kantor/Losiak, 2-0. Third: Kantor/Losiak d. Thole/Wickler, 2-1. Final: Mol/Sorum d. Bryl/Fijalek, 2-0 (21-19, 21-17).

Women: 1. Agatha Bednarczuk/Duda Lisboa (BRA); 2. Barbora Hermannova/Marketa Slukova (CZE); 3. Mariafe Artacho del Solar/Taliqua Clancy (AUS); 4. Maria Antonelli/Carol Salgado (BRA). Semis: Agatha/Duda d. Maria Antonelli/Carol, 2-0; Hermannova/Slukova d. Artacho del Solar/Clancy, 2-1. Third: Artacho del Clancy d. Maria Antonelli/Carol, 2-1. Final: Agatha/Duda d. Hermannova/Slukova, 2-0 (21-15, 21-19).