Top-seeded Anders Mol & Chrisian Sorum took revenge from second-seeded Miles Partain & Andrew Benesh for the defeat in the Gstaad Elite16 final earlier this month and beat the Americans in the Montreal Elite16 final on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour this Sunday. The Norwegians kept the tradition to reach the final at every single participation on the Tour in 2023 and have now collected three golds and three silvers this season alone. The reigning world and Olympic champions and FIVB World Ranking leaders also have five golds and two bronzes from the Beach Pro Tour inaugural 2022 season in their collection.
Elite16 - Montréal, CAN - 2023
Mol & Sorum get back at Partain & Benesh to win Montreal
Carambula & Ranghieri claim another Elite16 bronze
Published 10:41, 30 Jul 2023
- Watch Beach Pro Tour Montréal Elite16 replays on VBTV
For Partain & Benesh, the Montreal silver was the third consecutive Elite16 podium finish. They also took the bronze in Ostrava and the gold in Gstaad at their previous two Beach Pro Tour appearances. The pair also took gold at the first Dubai Challenge last year.
The Montreal bronze went to sixth-seeded Italians Adrian Carambula & Alex Ranghieri. It was the fourth Beach Pro Tour medal for the pair since they reunited in the fall of 2022, after their Torquay Challenge silver and the bronze medals at the Torquay Elite16 and the Doha Elite16.
The Montreal Elite16 medallists
In the first set of Sunday’s final, Mol & Sorum recovered from a three-point deficit to turn things around. A six-point series brought them to set point, which they converted on the second go. Benesh & Partain bounced back to dominate set two and level the match, but in the tie-breaker, they were not allowed to take the lead even for a moment as the Beachvolley Vikings pushed through to a 2-1 (21-17, 15-21, 15-10) victory. Mol owned the net with his excellent blocking performance. He raised eight kill blocks towards a 25-point match high. Sorum added another 19 points, all in offence. On the Americans’ side, Benesh led the scoring with 21 points, including four blocks and the only two aces in the game.
“How could we not have fun with this crowd?!” said Mol right after winning the final. “It was amazing here. The fans really pushed us hard. I don’t know why they are cheering so much for Norway here, in Canada, but we love it! We really played a great game today, but so did they. So we had to push really hard. They make us be better beach volleyball players and that’s good for the sport. We just have to thank the Americans for a great game.”
“Anders Mol made the difference, as usual. But he played really amazing today,” Sorum added. “It was tough, I was tired, there has been many games, but the crowd was amazing and Anders played really well today on the block and also in serving. That was the key factor to win.”
In a hard-fought bronze-medal match earlier on Sunday, Carambula & Ranghieri persevered through two overtime sets against 11th-seeded Brazilians Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano to celebrate a 2-0 (24-22, 22-20) win. In the second set, the Italians even recovered from a four-point deficit to gain the victory and secure a spot on the podium. While Ranghieri raised as many as six kill blocks towards a 20-point match tally, it was Arthur produced the match high of 23 points, all in spikes.
“We had a tough semifinal against a team that has been playing really well. We recovered mentally and we just said, ‘let’s have some fun’, and that’s what we did. We wanted it and it showed in our game,” Carambula said after the match. “Sometimes we want to kill each other, but today we stuck together and that was the key. The crowd was amazing. We love this atmosphere. They gave us all the ingredients to play our best volleyball.”
“My legs were a little weird the whole match, but in the end we found a way to work through this. It was amazing and I am so grateful about what we are doing as a team as we are growing, as we are facing adversities and how we recover from them,” Ranghieri pointed out. “We knew what we were up against and we were more focused, and even though we were maybe not in our best shape, we had a tactical game and eventually they came a little short. They are a great team and we respect them.”
Mol & Sorum mastered a 2-0 (21-11, 21-15) sweep of the first semifinal in the morning against Evandro & Arthur, thanks to Mol’s blocking effort, but mostly to the unforced errors the Brazilians committed. Arthur was the best scorer of the match with 23 points, while Sorum led the Beachvolley Vikings with 13.
In the second semifinal, Partain & Benesh delivered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) shutout of Ranghieri & Carambula, capitalizing on seven kill blocks (all authored by Benesh) against only one for the Italians. The scoring was pretty evenly spread among the four players, with Partain on top with 16 points, followed by Carambula with 15, and Benesh and Ranghieri with 14 apiece.
