Lithuania’s Arnas Rumsevicius & Karolis Palubinskas topped the podium at the men’s Warsaw Futures in Poland to celebrate their first gold on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. For 20-year-old Palubinskas, it was the first Tour medal of any kind. Ukraine’s Anton Moiseiev & Vitalii Savvin and Estonia’s Mart Tiisaar & Dimitriy Korotkov completed the podium.
Seeded fourth in the main draw bracket, Rumsevicius & Palubinskas started the tournament in Poland with a loss to Tiisaar & Korotkov, but then got on the winning track and five consecutive victories later they triumphed as Warsaw Futures champions. In the semifinals, the Lithuanian team squeezed out a tight 2-0 (22-20, 24-22) win over Czech qualifiers Krystof Jan Oliva & Vaclav Kurka, and in the final, they took a forfeit victory over 10th-seeded qualifiers Moiseiev & Savvin, who withdrew from the match for injury reasons. While the Warsaw gold was the first-ever Beach Pro Tour medal for Palubinskas, his 30-year-old teammate Rumsevicius previously had one bronze on the Tour with a different partner.
Before pulling out of the gold medal match, the Ukrainian pair had not dropped a single set in six matches played from the qualifications to the semifinals, in which they crowned their run with a dramatic 2-0 (25-23, 23-21) win over Tiisaar & Korotkov, to secure at least a silver medal finish. For the team of 20-year-old Moiseiev and 21-year-old Savvin, it was the second Tour podium, after the Marica Futures silver last December.
13th-seeded Tiisaar & Korotkov arrived at the semifinals on a streak of three victories. After losing narrowly to the Ukrainians, the Estonians recovered with a hard-fought 2-1 (21-19, 20-22, 15-13) win over Oliva & Kurka for the third place and picked up their first Beach Pro Tour medal as a duo.
