David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig will take on Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson in Sunday’s final of the men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship in Adelaide. This way, Sweden became only the second country in history to have two teams playing against one another in a World Championship final. Only Brazil has achieved such an exploit in the past, once in men's competition and twice on the women's side. In the second semifinal on Saturday in Australia, third-seeded Ahman & Hellvig defeated 14^th-seeded Germans Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler, who will get another chance to earn a spot on the podium as they take on France’s Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat in Sunday’s bronze medal playoff.

• Watch the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships on VBTV

Not only was that second semifinal a remake of last year’s Paris 2024 Olympic final, but it also produced almost the same result, 2-0 (21-10, 21-14) the way of Ahman & Hellvig, with Ehlers & Wickler scoring just a point more in the second set than they did at the Games in France. With this win, the Swedish jump-setters became the first men’s duo in history to qualify for two consecutive World Championship finals.

After 5-5 in the first set, Ahman & Hellvig put away four points in a row to break away and never looked back. With some solid blocking from Hellvig, and Ahman clinical in attack, the Swedes opened a wide gap, which went to 11 points at the end of the set as Hellvig delivered the winner with a successful swing. Ahman & Hellvig took control of the second set, but the Germans kept fighting and came back to within a point at the technical timeout. However, once the Swedes widened the gap again, Ehlers & Wickler seemingly lost faith and let the perfectly performing opponents cruise on to victory, shaped up with a block-out kill by Ahman for the winning point.

Ahman topped the scoring chart with two aces and 16 spike kills, while Hellvig put up four kill blocks towards a 16-point match tally. Ehlers also delivered 16 points for Germany, including two blocks and an ace.

“It feels amazing! We went into this championship not really knowing how good we were, because we’d had some injury problems this season and hadn’t practiced that much, but I think we played better and better in every match at this tournament, so we are super happy that we made it to the final,” Hellvig told VBTV after the semifinal.

“It’s just incredible!” Ahman commented on the fact that an all-Swedish final shaped up. “We never thought that before this tournament. Sweden is not really famous for beach volleyball, so it’s just incredible that we have two teams in the final of the World Champs.”

The men’s gold medal match in Adelaide on Sunday will serve off at 19:00 local time (08:30 UTC). While Ahman & Hellvig took silver at the previous World Championship in Mexico two years ago, for their younger compatriots Holting Nilsson & Andersson, this is the first time playing in the premier competition. The two teams practice together with the same coaching staff, but they have already met three times in international competition, all earlier in 2025. Ahman & Hellvig shut out their compatriots in the first two encounters - at the Warmia Mazury Challenge and at the Montreal Elite, while Holting Nilsson & Andersson pulled off a three-set win the last time they met, in the Montreal Elite semifinals.

Earlier on Sunday, the bronze medal game between Ehlers & Wickler and Rotar & Gauthier-Rat will start at 15:00 (04:30 UTC). It will be the first encounter between these two pairs.

FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships: schedule and results

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