Lisa Luini & Desy Poiesz of the Netherlands celebrated their first Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour gold together by topping the podium at the women’s Bondues Lille Metropole Futures in France. Two pairs representing the home nation completed the podium - Romane Sobezalz & Saofe Duval with silver, and Ophelie Lusson & Alex Merle with bronze.
The two 22-year-old Dutch athletes made a victorious run through the tournament winning all the five matches they played. In the semifinals, fifth-seeded Luini & Poiesz achieved a hard-fought 2-1 (26-28, 21-18, 15-6) turnaround against 13th-seeded Lusson & Merle. Facing another French pair, bracket leaders Sobezalz & Duval, in the final, the Dutch duo produced an emphatic result, 2-0 (21-8, 21-14), in under half an hour of play time. So, after one silver and two bronze medals previously on the Tour, Luini & Poiesz stepped on top of the podium for the first time. Poiesz, a 2023 U21 world champion, had already triumphed once at a Beach Pro Tour event with a different partner.
18-year-old Sobezalz and 19-year-old Duval also reached the gold medal showdown undefeated in four matches played. They crowned that streak with a 2-0 (21-16, 21-16) semifinal victory over 12th-seeded German qualifiers Sophia Neuss & Mareet Maidhof. Sobezalz & Duval have earned a couple of age-category continental medals together, but this was the first time they appeared on the Beach Pro Tour as a team. Each of them had already collected two Tour medals with different partners.
At only their second appearance on the Beach Pro Tour together, Lusson & Merle battled it out for the team’s first medal. They lost two of the six games they played in Lille, both to champions-to-be Luini & Poiesz. In the third-place match, Lusson & Merle bounced back with a 2-1 (15-21, 21-17, 15-11) comeback win over Neuss & Maidhof to pick up the bronze. Each of them also had previous podiums on the Tour with other teammates.
