Beach Pro Tour

Mol & Sunde complete impeccable journey from Ios qualifiers to gold

Bekhuis & Poiesz win women’s tournament for first Beach Pro Tour trophy

Published 05:26, 25 Jun 2023

Mol & Sunde celebrate their victory after the Ios final (source: cev.eu)

The Norwegian pairing of 21-year-old Markus Mol and 20-year-old Jo Gladsoy Sunde achieved a perfect run of seven straight-set victories at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Ios Futures in Greece to complete the journey from Wednesday’s qualifiers all the way to the top of the podium on Saturday. Wies Bekhuis & Desy Poiesz of the Netherlands won the women’s tournament to claim their first-ever Beach Pro Tour gold.

Markus, who is the middle of the five Mol siblings, younger brother to Hendrik and reigning world and Olympic champion Anders, and his partner Jo Gladsoy Sunde won their second Beach Pro Tour medal as a team, after their gold at the 2022 Warsaw Futures.

The young Beachvolley Vikings started the tournament in Greece as the sixth-seeded team in the qualification bracket. After shutting out both of their opponents on Wednesday, they continued as the 12^th-seeded pair in the 16-team main draw. Another four emphatic sweeps down the road, Mol & Sunde found themselves in Saturday’s final against experienced Austrians Florian Schnetzer & Lorenz Petutschnig, seeded sixth. After a nail-biting second set, pushed deep into overtime, the Norwegians emerged with yet another straight-set victory, 2-0 (21-17, 27-25), to celebrate as gold medallists.

Mol blocks Papadimitriou in semifinal action (source: cev.eu)

For 33-year-old Schnetzer and 30-year-old Petutschnig, who reached the final on a four-game winning streak, the Ios silver was the first Beach Pro Tour medal.

15^th-seeded Panagiotis Ioannidis & Thodoris Papadimitriou delighted the home fans with their first Beach Pro Tour medals. For 38-year-old Papadimitriou and his 24-year-old partner, it was only the third appearance on the Tour, but they made their way to the podium after knocking out top-seeded Argentineans Julian Azaad & Maciel Bueno in the quarterfinals, losing to the Norwegians in the semis and overcoming another Argentinean duo, Bautista Amieva & Leo Aveiro, for a 2-1 (21-18, 14-21, 15-13) victory in the bronze medal match.

Bekhuis & Poiesz triumph as Ios Futures champions (source: cev.eu)

For 21-year-old Wies Bekhuis and 20-year-old Desy Poiesz, it was also the third Beach Pro Tour appearance as a duo. After making the semifinals at their debut in Madrid last month, now the Dutch pair made it all the way to the top with gold, winning all five of their matches in the Greek sand. In the final, eighth-seeded Bekhuis & Poiesz produced a tight 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) shutout of third-seeded Austrians Franziska Friedl & Katharina Schutzenhofer. It was the first Beach Pro Tour appearance for Friedl & Schutzenhofer as a team. Each of them had one previous podium on record.

Top-seeded Argentineans Maia Najul & Cecilia Peralta settled for bronze, their third on the Tour after finishing third at the Lecce Futures in both 2022 and 2023. In the bronze medal game in Ios, they managed a 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) win over fifth-seeded Clara Windeleff & Sofia Bisgaard of Denmark.

Ios Futures: all results