Latvia’s Edgars Tocs & Gustavs Auzins celebrated their first ever Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour medal together after topping the podium at the Madrid Futures on Sunday. Mart Tiisaar & Dimitriy Korotkov of Estonia and Tom Sonneville & Quinten Groenewold earned silver and bronze, respectively, in the Spanish capital.
Seeded 10th in the main draw bracket, Tocs & Auzins cruised through the tournament undefeated in the five matches played. In the semifinals, the Latvians produced a hard-fought 2-1 (22-24, 21-19, 15-11) comeback against fourth-seeded Bence Tari & Lukas Niemeier of Hungary, and in the gold medal showdown, they registered a 2-0 (21-11, 21-0) victory over Tiisaar & Korotkov, following the injury-prompted withdrawal of the ninth-seeded Estonians from the match. For 37-year-old Tocs, a Tokyo 2020 Olympic semifinalist, it was the first ever gold on the Beach Pro Tour, while his 21-year-old teammate Auzins, a two-time world champion and two-time European champion for various age categories, had already topped a Beach Pro Tour podium once, alongside his youth partner Kristians Fokerots.
