Germany’s Robin Sowa & Maximilian Just claimed their first medal on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. They topped the podium at the men’s Krakow Futures in Poland on Sunday. Polish teenagers Jakub Krzeminski & Szymon Pietraszek took silver, while Belgium’s Louis Vandecaveye & Gilles Vandecaveye completed the podium with bronze.
25-year-old Sowa and 21-year-old Just, seeded seventh in the main draw, started off with a three-set loss to Austrian qualifiers Felix Friedl & Alexander Huber in their first pool match, but then got on the winning track and achieved five consecutive victories on the way to the gold, dropping only a set in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the Germans mastered a 2-0 (21-15, 21-18) shutout of 13th-seeded Italian qualifiers Manuel Alfieri & Tiziano Andreatta and, in the final, they hammered out a 2-0 (21-8, 21-13) win over 15th-seeded Krzeminski & Pietraszek. It was Sowa & Just’s fourth appearance on the Beach Pro Tour since they teamed up for the ongoing season, and they made it beyond the quarterfinals for the first time.
