Poland’s Szymon Pietraszek & Jakub Krzeminski and Latvia’s Matiss Salkovskis & Karlis Jaundzeikars will lock horns for the men’s title at the FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championships in Shangluo on Sunday. The battle for the bronze will be between the teams of Ines Antonio Vargas Lares & Carlos Andres Ayala Herrera from Mexico and AmirAli GhalehNovi & Habib AkbarzadehKashani from Iran.

• Watch the FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championships live on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel

The men’s competition day in China on Saturday went relatively smoothly, with all straight-set matches, until the last game made things a bit more dramatic, decorating the semifinals with a three-set battle.

In the second semifinal, Latvia’s Salkovskis & Jaundzeikars came back from a set down against Iran’s GhalehNovi & Akbarzadeh to celebrate a 2-1 (18-21, 21-16, 15-10) victory and a spot in Sunday’s gold medal match.

“I'm really happy. We have trained all summer for this event. Now we are in the final,” Matiss Salkovskis said. “I can't describe my feeling. Tomorrow we will show our best game and try to entertain the spectators. Of course, we are really confident since we know how our opponents play. I think they are good, but we are better. And tomorrow we will prove that. I really appreciate all the fans here in Shangluo and back in Latvia.”

Earlier on Saturday, Salkovskis & Jaundzeikars achieved a 2-0 (21-19, 21-14) quarterfinal win over Julian Hikel & Ole Sackermann of Germany.

In another quarterfinal encounter, Pietraszek & Krzeminski managed to defeat Veeti Viljamaa & Konsta Viljamaa of Finland narrowly in straight sets, 2-0 (21-19, 21-18), before producing a more emphatic 2-0 (21-15, 21-18) shutout of Mexico’s Lares & Carlos Andres in their semifinal match.

“I am very excited that we can be in the final of the World Championship. We are really happy and I don't even know what to say now. I want to cry out of happiness,” said Jakub Krzeminski. “During the match, we kept pressure with the service and kept our side-out, and this was really important to beat Mexico. We managed to do that and we did really well as a team, because we were always together in every action. We were keeping together and that is why we won.”

In their quarterfinal games on Saturday, both GhalehNovi & Akbarzadeh and Lares & Carlos Andres persevered through tough overtime first sets before sweeping their matches clean. The Iranians claimed a 2-0 (23-21, 21-17) win over Marcel Wanat & Tomasz Warych of Poland, while the Mexicans delivered a 2-0 (27-25, 21-13) victory over Bence Tari & Akos Veress of Hungary.

The battle for the men’s U19 world title between Poland and Latvia on Sunday is set to begin at 16:00 local time (08:00 UTC). The bronze medal game between Iran and Mexico is scheduled at 13:20 (05:20).

FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championships: schedule and results

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