Beach Volleyball World Championships Adelaide 2025

Holting Nilsson & Andersson and Rotar & Gauthier-Rat to meet again in Adelaide

The Swedes and the Frenchmen win the first two men’s quarterfinals in Australia

Published 07:54, 21 Nov 2025

Hölting Nilsson/Andersson, E (SWE) vs. Rotar/Gauthier-Rat (FRA) - Pool G #72610784

France’s Rotar spikes past the block of Sweden’s Holting Nilsson in their Pool G match

Swedish youngsters Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson will take on France’s Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat in one of the semifinals of the men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship in Adelaide on Saturday and it will be their second meeting in the tournament, after the Frenchmen achieved a three-set win over the Swedes in the deciding match for the first place in Pool G. The two teams emerged victorious from the first two quarterfinals in Australia on Friday.

Watch the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships on VBTV

In a tight clash between youthful talent and masterful experience, 20-year-old Holting Nilsson and 19-year-old Andersson celebrated a 2-0 (21-18, 22-20) victory over 39-year-old Rio 2016 Olympian Chaim Schalk and 31-year-old James Shaw of the United States in the first quarterfinal on Friday. The seventh-seeded Swedes came back from an 8-4 opponent advantage to win the first set. They maintained a slight lead for most of the second set, but in the end, the ninth-seeded Americans denied them a double match point to push the set into overtime. Still, Holting Nilsson & Andersson took the next two points to close the match and book a spot in the semifinals. Holting Nilsson was the best scorer of the match with 16 points, including three aces and a kill block. Andersson contributed another 14 points, all in swings. Shaw raised four kill block and fired an ace to lead the American team with a total of 15 points, one more than his partner’s 14, also including one serving point.

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“We got to the quarterfinals and everything from here is just a bonus for us. So, no pressure! We are just enjoying being here and playing,” Andersson told VBTV after the match.

The second quarterfinal was even more competitive and was pushed to a tie-breaker resolution before 21-year-old Teo Rotar and 29-year-old Paris 2024 Olympian Arnaud Gauthier-Rat could triumph with a 2-1 (21-19, 17-21, 15-13) win over Lukas Pfretzschner & Sven Winter of Germany. The first set went quite level through 19-19, when the 18^th-seeded Frenchmen closed it off with two points in a row. The 20^th-seeded Germans came back from a three-point deficit in the second and, after 17-17, broke away with four in a row to level the match. The tie-breaker also offered a hard-fought battle through 13-13, when Rotar nailed the last two points to bring home the victory. He led the winners with 24 points, including three kill blocks and an ace. Gauthier-Rat added another 18, all in attack. Pfretzschner impressed with four aces towards a 21-point tally, while Winter emerged as the best scorer of the match with 25 points, including two aces and two blocks. It was the sixth consecutive victory for Rotar & Gauthier-Rat at Adelaide 2025 and the fifth achieved after a three-set game.

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“It’s amazing to win here in Australia! This is where I got my first Elite16 victory, in Torquay back a couple of years ago. Thank you so much for the experience here, the atmosphere, the crowd… It feels amazing! Semifinal!” an elated Gauthier-Rat said after the game.

“I have no words right now. We are very proud!” Rotar added.

Saturday’s semifinal between Holting Nilsson & Andersson and Rotar & Gauthier-Rat will serve off at 15:00 local time (04:30 UTC).

The two teams have met twice before. The northern Europeans swept their first encounter back in March at the Yucatan Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, and just four days ago, in a Pool G fixture at this World Championship in Adelaide, the western Europeans claimed a 2-1 (21-16, 12-21, 15-13) victory.

The other two men’s quarterfinals – between Sweden’s David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig and Brazil’s Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano Lanci, and between Germany’s Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler and Czechia’s Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner – will be played later on Friday.

“We wish Ahman & Hellvig all the best,” said Holting Nilsson. “It would be awesome to have two Swedish teams in the semifinals.