Saturday’s second semifinal of the men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship in Adelaide will offer a remake of last year’s Paris 2024 Olympic final between Sweden’s David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig and Germany’s Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler. In the last two men’s quarterfinals in Australia on Friday, the Swedish jump-setters outlasted mighty Brazilians Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano Lanci, while the German duo dethroned the defending world champions from Tlaxcala 2023, Czechia’s Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner.

• Watch the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships on VBTV

Third-seeded Olympic champions Ahman & Hellvig squeezed out a nail-biting 2-0 (22-20, 22-20) victory in their quarterfinal against fourth-seeded Evandro & Arthur Lanci. For most of the first set, the Swedes were trailing in the score, but right at the end, they flipped it around to reach the first set point at 20-19 and closed it on the second with a successful swing by Ahman. The second set was also very competitive and the lead went back and forth several times, before the Brazilians reached set point at 20-19. The Swedes reacted with three consecutive points from Hellvig, who closed the match with two monster blocks in a row. With a total of three blocking points and one ace, Hellvig led the winners with 17 points. Ahman chipped in with another 14, also including an ace. Evandro was the best scorer of the match with 22 points, including three blocks, while Arthur Lanci finished with 14 points, all in swings.

“It’s just unbelievable that there are two Swedish teams in the semifinals of a world championship in beach volleyball! We only ski in Sweden, so I don’t know how that happened,” Ahman told VBTV after the quarterfinal win.

“It was an amazing feeling to get those final blocks in this match. It felt like I was really close the whole match, but I couldn’t really get my hands on the ball, but it was so nice to get those final blocks,” Hellvig added.

In the last men’s quarterfinal, 14th-seeded Ehlers & Wickler, Paris 2024 runners-up, produced a 2-0 (21-18, 21-18) upset of eighth-seeded world champions Perusic & Schweiner. While the Czechs were making more unforced errors, the Germans were staying more focused on the court to dominate the match. They broke away after 16-16 in the first set with three points in row and shortly won it on their second set point. Ehlers & Wickler took control of the scoreboard at 3-2 in the second set and never let go until Ehlers put away the match winner. Wickler led the German pair with a team-high 18 points, including an ace. Ehlers also fired an ace and added three kill blocks to finish with 15 points. Schweiner topped the chart with three blocks and two aces towards a match-high 23 points, while Perusic scored nine times, all in attack.

“I am just very happy to get to play again in front of this amazing crowd,” said Wickler after the match.

Saturday’s first semifinal between Sweden’s Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson and France’s Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat will start at 15:00 local time (04:30 UTC). The second semifinal between Ahman & Hellvig and Ehlers & Wickler will serve off four hours later, at 19:00 (08:30).

The two teams have met 14 times in international competitions before, and Ahman & Hellvig have won 13 of those encounters. After winning the Olympic final in straight sets, the northern Europeans also swept the only meeting they have had this season, in August’s CEV European Championship quarterfinals in Duesseldorf. The only time Ehlers & Wickler beat this Swedish duo was at the 2023 Tepic Elite16 on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour.

In past World Championships, Ahman & Hellvig got silver at the previous event in Mexico, while Wickler finished Hamburg 2019 runners-up with his previous partner Julius Thole.

FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships: schedule and results

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