Ariana Rudkovskaja & Skalve Krizanauskaite matched their Lithuanian compatriots Arnas Rumsevicius & Karolis Palubinskas’s success in the men’s Warsaw Futures in Poland last week and won gold in this week’s women’s event. They made it from the qualifications all the way to an all-Lithuanian final against Ieva Vasiliauskaite & Erika Kliokmanaite before topping the podium and winning their first ever Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour medal. The bronze went to Romania’s Beata Vaida & Francesca Alupei.
Rudkovskaja & Krizanauskaite, seeded first in the qualification bracket and, then, eighth in the main draw, won seven of the eight matches they played in Warsaw. In the semifinals, they mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) win over ninth-seeded Romanians Vaida & Alupei, and in the gold medal showdown, they came back from a set down to celebrate a hard-earned 2-1 (15-21, 26-24, 15-10) victory over fellow Lithuanians Ieva Vasiliauskaite & Erika Kliokmanaite.
In the other semifinal, sixth-seeded Ievute & Kliokmanaite managed a 2-0 (30-28, 21-18) win over fourth-seeded Hungarians Stefania Kun & Lilla Villam to set up the all-Lithuanian final and guarantee themselves their second Beach Pro Tour medal as a team, after the Satun Futures silver they got in 2023.
Vaida & Alupei battled it out for their first Beach Pro Tour medal with a 2-1 (15-21, 21-16, 15-11) comeback victory over Kun & Villam in the third-place playoff.
