Lucky losers from Poland push through to U18 men’s semis

Poland’s Alan Robak & Igor Gliszczynski, who entered the 2026 FIVB Beach Volleyball U18 World Championship men’s main draw as “lucky losers” from the qualifications wrote their Cinderella story on Saturday and pushed their way through to Sunday’s semifinals in the Hague, where they will take on Australia’s Ryan Edgar & Thomas Turner. In the other semifinal, another two teams emerging from the qualifiers – Germany’s Lasse Huper & Filo Wust and France’s Adrien Bezu & Quentin Hypolyte – will lock horns for a spot in the gold medal showdown.

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Robak & Gliszczynski lost their deciding match in Wednesday’s qualifiers, but thanks to some additional main draw vacancies and the luck of the draw, entered the 32-team main draw as the 30^th seed. Then, they finished third in their pool on a 2-1 win-loss record. In Saturday’s knockout matches, however, they were invincible.

In the sixteenthfinals, the Polish duo came back from a set down against Kazakhstan’s Alikhan Agabek & Orazali Sagynysh to mount a furious 2-1 (10-21, 21-9, 15-9) turnaround. In the eighthfinals, Robak & Gliszczynski hammered out a 2-0 (21-15, 21-15) upset of top-seeded Dutch home favorites Sven van Groenestein & Kyan Bezemer, and finished their day off with a 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) shutout of Japan’s Rikuho Kashiwaki & Sota Sugiura in the quarterfinals.

“It’s an incredible journey that we came from the qualifications, where we were first eliminated by Switzerland and then we got ‘lucky losers’, which was like a second life for us,” Igor Gliszczynski told the FIVB. “It’s amazing to reach that high after almost leaving the tournament. We are still hungry for the wins in the two matches that we have to play. We are totally motivated, and we want to win that so bad!”

“It feels amazing! In my opinion, since we came into the main draw as ‘lucky losers’, we had a ‘nothing-to-lose’ mentality,” Alan Robak added. “The Polish fans really helped too, so I want to thank them for the support. Now we are really happy that we are still in and we are in the semis!”

Meanwhile, having finished Pool H runners-up to France’s Bezu & Hypolyte, Australia’s Edgar & Turner also had three knockout games to play on Saturday. They swept them all in straight sets. The Aussies mastered a 2-0 (21-12, 21-14) shutout of Argentina’s Zac Osatinsky & Nahuel Cornejo in the first elimination round, squeezed out a narrow 2-0 (21-19, 22-20) win over Lithuania’s Laimonas Alisauskas & Lukas Gumbelevicius in the second, and topped it off with a dramatic 2-0 (21-12, 27-25) upset of defending U18 world champion Ludvig Ringoen of Norway and his partner Liam Karlsen.

One of last year’s silver medalists – Germany’s Filo Wust – however, made it to the semifinals. He and his teammate Lasse Huper extended their fantastic winning streak at the championship to eight victories in a row, dropping only a set along the way. To the three in Wednesday’s qualifications and the three in Pool G, they added a 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) sweep of their eighthfinal against Switzerland’s Luke Koller & Liam Bigler, and a 2-0 (21-13, 21-17) upset of second-seeded compatriots Ben Bockfeld & Hendrik Faber in an all-German quarterfinal on Saturday.

Similarly, France’s Bezu & Hypolyte have been riding the wave of an eight-match winning run from the first round of qualifiers all the way to the semifinals. In the knockout stage of the tournament, the French pair achieved a 2-1 (18-21, 21-15, 15-9) eighthfinal comeback against Colombia’s Martin Gaviria & Mateo Rodriguez, and a tight 2-0 (21-19, 25-23) straight-setter against Brazil’s Gabriel Campos & Bruno Fellipe in the quarterfinal.

Robak & Gliszczynski will take on Edgar & Turner at 12:00 local time (10:00 UTC) in the first of two men’s semifinals on Sunday. The second semifinal, between Bezu & Hypolyte and Huper & Wust, is set to start an hour later. The men’s bronze medal playoff and gold medal showdown are scheduled at 15:00 (13:00) and 17:00 (15:00), respectively, on Sunday afternoon.

2026 FIVB Beach Volleyball U18 World Championship: schedule and results

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