Futures - Laginha Beach, CPV - 2025

Duos from Lithuania and Latvia win last Beach Pro Tour event of the year

Pairs from Ukraine, Germany and France also make the podiums in Cape Verde

Published 09:57, 15 Dec 2025

An aerial view of the Laginha Beach Futures center court (source: Federação Cabo-Verdiana de VoleiBol)

Latvia’s Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics and Lithuania’s Ieva Vasiliauskaite & Erika Kliokmanaite cruised through the Laginha Beach Futures in Cape Verde without dropping a single set and snatched the trophies at the last Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event of the season. Two Ukrainian teams – Dmytro Kozii & Vitalii Savvin and Ivan Likhatskyi & Richard Likhatskyi – completed the men’s podium. Germany’s Rika Dieckmann & Sophia Neuss and France’s Ophelie Lusson & Alex Merle picked up silver and bronze, respectively, on the women’s side.

Latvia’s Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics won all five of their matches in Cape Verde in straight-sets and celebrated their first Beach Pro Tour gold. Previously, the pair had two silvers and two bronzes. In the semifinals, second-seeded Bedritis & Rinkevics hammered out a 2-0 (21-15, 21-11) shutout of third-seeded Czechs Jan Dumek & David Westphal and, in the final, they mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-12) victory over sixth-seeded Dmytro Kozii & Vitalii Savvin.

Before that, 19-year-old Kozii and 21-year-old Savvin came back from a set down to win the all-Ukrainian semifinal against Ivan Likhatskyi & Richard Likhatskyi by 2-1 (14-21, 22-20, 15-8) and secure the first Beach Pro Tour podium for the recently formed pair.

The ninth-seeded Likhatskyis, who started their Laginha Beach campaign from the qualifications, bounced back from their first loss of the tournament with a 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) sweep of the third-place playoff against Dumek & Westphal and also picked up their first medal on the tour as a team.

Lithuania’s Ieva Vasiliauskaite & Erika Kliokmanaite also made a perfect campaign in Cape Verde and brought home their first Beach Pro Tour gold as a duo. Previously, they had triumphed on the tour with other partners, but had only two silver medals together. The top-seeded Lithuanians won their semifinal against fifth-seeded Riko Tsujimura & Takemi Nishibori of Japan by 2-0 (21-10, 21-14) and followed up with a 2-0 (21-14, 21-18) victory over Germany’s Rika Dieckmann & Sophia Neuss in the gold medal showdown.

The second-seeded German teenagers crowned their Beach Pro Tour debut as a duo with silver. In their semifinal, they put together a 2-1 (18-21, 21-18, 15-9) turnaround against third-seeded Ophelie Lusson & Alex Merle of France. It was the second consecutive podium for 17-year-old Dieckmann, after her Bujumbura Futures gold in August.

Lusson & Merle grabbed their second bronze together (after the Lille Futures at home) with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) win over Riko & Take for the third place.