Datsiuk & Bublyk, Tega & Mattavelli celebrate first Beach Pro Tour gold medals in Krakow

Ukraine’s Ivan Datsiuk & Oleksii Bublyk and Italy’s Margherita Tega & Aurora Mattavelli won the Krakow Futures on Sunday to celebrate their first Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour gold medals. Two Polish teams pleased the home crowd with the men’s silver and bronze – Jakub Krzeminski & Aleksander Czachorowski and Piotr Janiak & Jedrzej Brozyniak, respectively. Lithuania’s Daniele Kvedaraite & Jekaterina Saule and Czechia’s Anna Pospisilova & Julie Honzovicova completed the women’s podium.

25-year-old Ivan Datsiuk and 24-year-old Oleksii Bublyk dropped only a set in the five matches played on the way to the Krakow Futures gold and that was in their semifinal against fourth-seeded Poles Piotr Janiak & Jedrzej Brozyniak, which the second-seeded Ukrainians won by a narrow 2-1 (21-18, 11-21, 19-17). In the final, Datsiuk & Bublyk came across another home team – Jakub Krzeminski & Aleksander Czachorowski – and mastered a 2-0 (21-16, 21-18) sweep to snatch the gold, their second Beach Pro Tour medal as a team, after the Balikesir Futures bronze at their previous appearance on the Tour together, back in September of last year.

Czachorowski and his 19-year-old partner Krzeminski, a 2024 U19 world champion, lost two of the six matches they played in Krakow, both to champions-to-be Datsiuk & Bublyk. In the semifinals, the seventh-seeded Poles achieved a tight 2-0 (27-25, 21-19) victory over 11^th-seeded Audrius Knasas & Povilas Piesina of Lithuania and also secured the duo’s second Beach Pro Tour medal, after the Sanya Futures bronze in March.

Experienced Janiak & Brozyniak once again stopped short of claiming their first Beach Pro Tour gold. The 37-year-old Poles had two gold medals from the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, but have so far collected three silvers and three bronzes on the Beach Pro Tour, including the one they took on Sunday after a 2-0 (22-20, 21-16) win over Knasas & Piesina in the third-place playoff.

On the women’s side, 21-year-old Margherita Tega and 22-year-old Aurora Mattavelli of Italy also lost only a set in Krakow, but in as many as seven matches played. They entered the tournament from Thursday’s qualifications and cruised on all the way to the top of their first-ever Beach Pro Tour podium as a pair. Tega & Mattavelli, seeded eighth in the main draw, put together a 2-1 (21-19, 18-21, 15-13) semifinal victory over seventh-seeded Czechs Anna Pospisilova & Julie Honzovicova and went on to deliver a 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) upset of second-seeded Lithuanians Daniele Kvedaraite & Jekaterina Saule in the gold medal showdown.

Before facing the Italians, Kvedaraite & Saule won all four of their matches in Krakow to progress to their first Beach Pro Tour final. They crowned their winning streak with a hard-fought 2-0 (23-21, 21-19) semifinal victory over fourth-seeded Noa Sonneville & Esmee Radstake of the Netherlands. Previously, Kvedaraite & Saule had two bronze medals from the Beach Pro Tour in 2024.

In the bronze medal game, Pospisilova & Honzovicova beat the Dutch duo by 2-0 (21-14, 21-18) to celebrate Honzovicova’s first Beach Pro Tour podium.

28 men’s and 28 women’s duos representing 22 different countries took part in the Krakow Futures.

The next two Futures stops on the Beach Pro Tour will be held in Jurmala, Latvia from June 10 to 14, and in Spiez, Switzerland (women only) from June 11 to 14.

Krakow Futures: all results

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