United States’ Lexy Denaburg & Deahna Kraft and Czechia’s Jakub Sepka & Jiri Sedlak topped the women’s and the men’s podiums, respectively, at the Leuven Futures in Belgium on Sunday and celebrated both their teams’ first ever Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour medals. Lisa Luini & Desy Poiesz of the Netherlands and Sarah Cools & Lisa Van Den Vonder of Belgium took the women’s silver and bronze, while Latvia’s Gustavs Auzins & Kristians Fokerots and Austria’s Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger completed the men’s podium.
Beach Pro Tour
Denaburg & Kraft and Sepka & Sedlak win Leuven to celebrate first Beach Pro Tour medals
Teams from Netherlands, Belgium, Latvia and Austria also make the Futures podiums in Belgium
Published 08:10, 22 Jul 2024
![The 2024 Leuven Futures medallists (source: Leuven Beach)](https://images.volleyballworld.com/image/upload/t_editorial_landscape_8_desktop_mobile/f_auto/fivb-prd/w0mbciyhpoq5gvfxd4nj.jpg)
The 2024 Leuven Futures medallists (source: Leuven Beach)
![2024 Leuven Futures women’s champions Lexy Denaburg & Deahna Kraft of USA (source: Leuven Beach)](https://images.volleyballworld.com/image/upload/t_editorial_landscape_8_desktop_mobile/f_auto/v1721636023/fivb-prd/a6ir7eesyw6rvcz0rca1.jpg)
2024 Leuven Futures women’s champions Lexy Denaburg & Deahna Kraft of USA (source: Leuven Beach)
It was only the second Beach Pro Tour appearance for the recently formed US pairing of 23-year-old Lexy Denaburg and 25-year-old Deahna Kraft, but they have already pocketed their first gold as a team. It was also the first-ever Tour medal for Kraft, while Denaburg had known the feeling of being on top of the podium, as she and Carly Can triumphed at the Seoul Futures last year.
Denaburg & Kraft were impeccable in their run towards the gold in Leuven. Seeded fourth in the women’s main draw bracket, they cruised to the top without dropping a single set in their five matches played. They crowned their quest with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-16) sweep of the gold medal showdown against Dutch qualifiers Lisa Luini & Desy Poiesz. Before that, in the semifinals, the American duo mastered a 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) upset of the top-seeded home team of Sarah Cools & Lisa Van Den Vonder.
The pair of 21-year-old Dutch athletes appeared on the Tour as a team for the first time and immediately made their way from the qualifiers all the way to the final and the podium. Initially seeded seventh in the qualification bracket and then 12th in the main draw bracket, Luini & Poiesz claimed the silver medals on a record of six wins and two losses in Leuven. Before falling to Denaburg & Kraft for the gold, they overcame another American pair, Madelyne Anderson & Brook Bauer, also arriving from the qualifiers, in a hard-fought 2-1 (21-14, 12-21, 15-11) semifinal. While Luini celebrated her first-ever Beach Pro Tour medal, Poiesz had already won gold at the 2023 Ios Futures, in addition to the FIVB U21 Beach Volleyball World Championship title later last year.
Cools & Van Den Vonder bounced back from their semifinal loss and pleased the home crowd in Leuven with a 2-0 (22-20, 21-16) win over Anderson and Bauer in the third place match, collecting their fourth consecutive and fifth overall medal on the Beach Pro Tour. The Belgian duo’s showcase also features four medals from the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour.
![2024 Leuven Futures men’s champions Jakub Sepka & Jiri Sedlak of Czechia (source: Leuven Beach)](https://images.volleyballworld.com/image/upload/t_editorial_landscape_8_desktop_mobile/f_auto/v1721635815/fivb-prd/hgomknpns1fcjfvd0ndl.jpg)
2024 Leuven Futures men’s champions Jakub Sepka & Jiri Sedlak of Czechia (source: Leuven Beach)
The Czech pairing of 22-year-old Jakub Sepka and 24-year-old Jiri Sedlak collected their first-ever Beach Pro Tour medal and also did so with the help of a perfect winning streak of five straight-set wins to the top of the men’s podium in Leuven. In the gold medal match, third-seeded Sepka & Sedlak produced a 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) victory over second-seeded Latvians Gustavs Auzins & Kristians Fokerots, following a 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) upset of top-seeded Austrians Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger in the semis.
The 19-year-old Latvians, 2022 U19 world champions and U18 European champions, picked up their second Beach Pro Tour medal, after earning Baden Futures gold last month. They also reached the Leuven final without losing any sets along the way. Their last victory was a 2-0 (21-17, 21-18) sweep of their semifinal against ninth-seeded Spaniards Javier Huerta & Alejandro Huerta.
Another pair of young hopefuls, 20-year-old Hammarberg and 19-year-old Berger, 2022 U20 European champions and 2023 U21 World Championship and U20 European Championship runners-up, took the bronze in Leuven. In the third place game, they mastered a 2-0 (21-9, 21-17) victory over the Huerta brothers and added the third medal to their Beach Pro Tour collection.
28 men’s and 28 women’s teams representing a total of 29 different countries took part in the Leuven Futures. The next Futures event will also take place in Belgium – in the capital Brussels from August 1 to 4.