Aussies Hodges & Hood triumph at Nuvali

Australian Olympian Thomas Hodges and his 21-year-old partner Ben Hood raised the winners’ trophy at the Nuvali Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. In Santa Rosa, Philippines on Sunday, they made it to their first Beach Pro Tour podium since they teamed up for the start of this season. It was the first Tour gold in Hood’s career, second for Hodges.

• Watch the Nuvali Challenge on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel

Two pairs from Switzerland completed the men’s podium in the Philippines. Another Olympian – Adrian Heidrich – and his teammate Yves Haussener claimed the silver medal, the team’s first hardware on the Beach Pro Tour, after its debut last week at the Xiamen Challenge in China.

Heidrich and Haussener’s previous teammates – Jonathan Jordan and 19-year-old Julian Friedli, respectively – who have been playing together since the start of this season, also earned their first Beach Pro Tour medal by finishing in third place at the Nuvali Challenge on Sunday.

Thomas Hodges & Ben Hood won all six of their matches in Santa Rosa to triumph on top of the podium. In both of their semifinal and final matches, however, the 10^th-seeded Aussies had to persevere through tie-breaker battles with their Swiss opponents. In the semis, Hodges & Hood outlasted Julian Friedli & Jonathan Jordan to celebrate a 2-1 (21-18, 12-21, 15-7) win, despite an impressive eight kill blocks by Friedli. In the gold medal showdown, the Australians came back from a set down against Adrian Heidrich & Yves Haussener to mount a 2-1 (14-21, 21-16, 15-8) victory, with a match-high 23 points from Hodges, including three kill blocks.

Heidrich & Haussener made a perfect run of five wins in a row without dropping a single set on the way to the final. The ninth-seeded Swiss duo crowned their streak with a narrow 2-0 (21-19, 23-21) semifinal win over 14^th-seeded Philipp Huster & Sven Winter of Germany to guarantee themselves a spot on the podium. Heidrich also won the blocking race with Huster by 7-6 in stuffs.

Fifth-seeded Friedli & Jordan bounced back from their semifinal loss with a 2-1 (18-21, 21-13, 15-13) turnaround victory over Huster & Winter in the bronze medal game to rejoice on the duo’s first Beach Pro Tour podium. Friedli led the way with 28 points as the top scorer of the third-place playoff.

A total of 54 men’s teams from 23 different countries took part in the Nuvali Challenge.

The next Challenge stop on the Beach Pro Tour will take place in Alanya, Turkiye from June 10 to 14.

Beach Pro Tour Nuvali Challenge: all results

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