Norway’s Kjemperuds and Slovenia’s Kotnik & Lovsin win Bujumbura Futures

Norway’s Jonah Kjemperud & Sebastian Kjemperud and Slovenia’s Tjasa Kotnik & Tajda Lovsin topped the men’s and the women’s podiums, respectively, at the Bujumbura Futures on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. Benjamin Vaught & Wesley Jensen of the United States and Jiri Dostal & Filip Rydval of Czechia earned silver and bronze in the men’s tournament, while two Japanese teams - Miharu Kashihara & Maho Yabumi and Riko Tsujimura & Kako Yajima - completed the women’s podium in Burundi.

18-year-old Sebastian Kjemperud, a 2025 U18 world champion, and his 20-year-old brother Jonah Kjemperud cruised through the Bujumbura Futures undefeated, winning all four of their matches on the road to their second Beach Pro Tour gold. The Norwegian pair has now medaled at three of their four most recent appearances on the Tour. In their semifinal in Burundi, the top-seeded Kjemperuds lost their only set of the tournament, but came back to mount a nail-biting 2-1 (19-21, 23-21, 16-14) turnaround against fifth-seeded Czechs Jiri Dostal & Filip Rydval. In the gold medal showdown against eighth-seeded Americans Benjamin Vaught & Wesley Jensen, the Norwegian brothers mastered a 2-0 (21-9, 21-18) sweep.

The US duo lost two of their six games in Bujumbura, both to Kjemperud & Kjemperud, and that was enough for Jensen to decorate his Beach Pro Tour debut in silver. In their semifinal, Vaught & Jensen put together a 2-0 (21-14, 21-15) win over sixth-seeded Florian Manariyo & Don Carmel Gakiza of the host nation Burundi.

Dostal & Rydval bounced back from their only loss of the tournament in the semifinals with a hard-fought 2-1 (21-16, 19-21, 15-13) victory over 18-year-old Manariyo and 20-year-old Gakiza in the third-place playoff to claim the bronze, their first Beach Pro Tour medal.

At their first Beach Pro Tour event of 2026, Slovenia’s Tjasa Kotnik & Tajda Lovsin celebrated their first-ever Beach Pro Tour gold. Previously, they had two silvers together. The bracket leaders did not drop any sets in the three matches played in Bujumbura. In their semifinal against second-seeded Riko Tsujimura & Kako Yajima of Japan, Kotnik & Lovsin produced a 2-0 (21-14, 21-17) sweep, and in the final against another Japanese duo, third-seeded Miharu Kashihara & Maho Yabumi, they delivered a 2-0 (23-21, 21-16) victory.

Miharu & Yabumi also reached the final undefeated. They crowned their three-match winning streak with a hard-fought 2-1 (21-12, 20-22, 19-17) victory over fourth-seeded Yu Okuno & Nozomi Sekiguchi in an all-Japanese semifinal to secure their first Beach Pro Tour podium.

In the bronze medal game, Riko & Yajima hammered out a 2-0 (21-9, 21-19) shutout of compatriots Okuno & Sekiguchi and also picked up their first Beach Pro Tour hardware as a pair.

12 men’s and seven women’s duos from Burundi, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Norway, Slovenia, Tanzania and the USA took part in the Bujumbura Futures.

The next Futures stops on the Beach Pro Tour will be held from August 27 to 30 in Brno, Czechia and Modena, Italy.

Bujumbura Futures: all results

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