Reigning world champions Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) & Ana Patricia Ramos topped the podium at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Ostrava to collect their third gold and ninth overall medal on the Tour. For Duda, it was the second time to emerge victorious at the Lower Vitkovice industrial heritage site, after she and Agatha Bednarczuk defeated Ana Patricia & Rebecca Cavalcanti in the 2019 4-star final on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour. Now, Duda & Ana Patricia conquered Ostrava together.

· Watch Beach Pro Tour Ostrava Elite16 replays on VBTV.

The silver medals went to Terese Cannon & Sarah Sponcil of the United States, who started their Ostrava campaign from Wednesday’s qualifiers and made it all the way to Sunday’s final. It was the fourth Beach Pro Tour podium for their team. Tokyo 2020 Olympian Sponcil had already been on the Ostrava podium once, as she and her previous partner Kelly Claes (now Cheng) took the 2021 4-star gold in the Czech city, which is when they qualified for the Games in Japan.

Another duo that started their Ostrava campaign from the qualifiers, Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson, completed the podium with bronze. It was only the third Beach Pro Tour appearance for the recently formed pairing of Canadian Olympians and they already have their first medal. Brandie had a 2018 4-star silver from Ostrava with Heather Bansley.

Cannon & Sponcil, seeded bottom 16^th in the main draw bracket, dominated the first set of Sunday’s big final against Ana Patricia & Duda, but the top-seeded Brazilians fought back to triumph after a 2-1 (17-21, 21-14, 15-12) victory, mostly thanks to their solid performance in offence. Both players reached the 20+ mark in the match. Duda delivered the match high of 22 points, including an ace, while Ana Patricia produced 21 points, two of which from blocking. On the Americans’ side, Cannon finished with 17 points in attack, one ace and one kill block, while Sponcil also aced once towards a total tally of 15 points.

“What a match!” Ana Patricia exclaimed after the final. “Congrats to Sarah and Terese! They are brilliant players! It’s so hard here and we are very happy. We are so grateful to Ostrava. Thanks!”

“I love playing here. It’s my third time. It’s a different and a very special place,” Duda added. “I thank everybody here for the support. It was amazing!”

In the bronze medal match, fifth-seeded Nina Brunner & Tanja Huberli of Switzerland had control over the scoreboard only during the first few rallies of the first set, but then 13^th-seeded Melissa & Brandie pushed forward on all counts and dominated the rest of the game on the way to a 2-0 (21-16, 21-14) shutout. Brandie was on fire at the net to hammer 14 kills in attack and three in blocking, while also adding three aces towards a match-high 20 points. Melissa also aced three times in the match towards an individual total of 11 points. Huberli had three aces as well to finish with 12 points, while Brunner tallied eight points, all in offence.

“It was extremely difficult. The teams here are elite calibre, but we’ve been working very hard. We have an amazing team, amazing coach... Every game we were focused and we had our eyes on the prize,” Brandie commented at the end of the match.

“This is one of our favourite tournaments and the spectators have been amazing all week long. Thank you so much, Ostrava!” Melissa exclaimed.

The two semifinals were also played earlier on Sunday. Cannon & Sponcil opened the centre court for the day’s business with a hard-fought 2-1 (19-21, 23-21, 15-13) comeback against Melissa & Brandie, with Cannon leading the scoreboard on 28 points, including two aces and a block.

Ana Patricia & Duda also had to recover from losing the first set of their semifinal against Brunner & Huberli, but did so emphatically to claim a 2-1 (18-21, 21-11, 15-12) victory, with the number of unforced errors making the biggest difference in the match. Ana Patricia mounted four kill blocks and an ace and emerged as the game’s best scorer with 26 points.

VW Beach Pro Tour Ostrava Elite16: all results

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