The Swiss pair of Immanuel Zurcher & Jonathan Jordan topped the men’s podium at the Leuven Futures in Belgium on Sunday to claim their first Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour medal. China’s Lin MeiMei & Zeng Jinjin won the women’s tournament and also claimed their first Tour podium as a team.
22-year-old Zurcher and 23-year-old Jordan produced five consecutive straight-set victories in Leuven to celebrate the trophy without dropping a single set. In the final, the sixth-seeded Swiss duo mastered a 2-0 (21-18, 21-18) shutout of fifth-seeded Dutchmen Mees Sengers & Dirk Boehle, after delivering a 2-0 (21-16, 21-17) upset of top-seeded Belgians Louis Vandecaveye & Gilles Vandecaveye in the semifinals earlier on Sunday. Zurcher & Jordan have been competing together since the start of the Beach Pro Tour last year and their best result so far was the fourth place they took at the Cervia Futures in May 2022.
The Dutch pairing of 30-year-old Boehle and 18-year-old Sengers have been playing Futures events in Europe since 2022. They had never reached the final four at any of them before. In Leuven, they decorated their first Beach Pro tour podium finish with silver. To reach the final four in Belgium, Sengers & Boehle, hammered three straight-set victories. In their semifinal, they upset the strong Swiss duo of Adrian Heidrich & Leo Dillier, seeded second, with a hard-fought 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 15-11) win to secure their spot on the podium.
After conceding their only loss of the tournament in the semis, 28-year-old Tokyo Olympian Heidrich and his 22-year-old partner Dillier fought back from a set down to claim a 2-1 (11-21, 21-16, 15-7) victory over Vandecaveye & Vandecaveye for the bronze. For the Swiss duo, it was also the first-ever Beach Pro Tour medal. Their best result so far was a fourth place at the second Dubai Challenge in October.
