Ahman & Hellvig defend European title, Huberli & Brunner return to continental throne

Sweden’s David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig and Switzerland’s Nina Brunner & Tanja Huberli earned their second CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship titles over the weekend in Vienna. While Ahman & Hellvig defended their trophy from last year, Brunner & Huberli reclaimed the crown, which they won in 2021, also in the Austrian capital, but then lost to Latvia’s Anastasija Samoilova & Tina Graudina in the 2022 final.

The 21-year-old Swedish jump-setters, currently number two in the men’s men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking, went through their entire EuroBeachVolley campaign undefeated, losing only three sets in the six matches played. In Sunday’s final, Ahman & Hellvig mastered a 2-0 (21-16, 21-18) shutout of Netherlands’ Leon Luini & Yorick de Groot.

It was the second continental title for the Swedish duo at the senior level, but they have four age-category European Championship gold medals to show off as well. They also claimed the FIVB U21 World Championship crown in 2021 and the gold medals at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games. Their Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour collection features six medals – three gold, two silver and one bronze.

For the pairing of 23-year-old Yorick de Groot and 22-year-old Leon Luini, it was the first major international tournament as a team and they decorated it with silver, after upsetting top-ranked and top-seeded world and Olympic champions Anders Mol & Christian Sorum of Norway with a 2-1 (16-21, 21-14, 15-11) turnaround in the quarterfinals. De Groot celebrated as a EuroBeachVolley runner-up for the second time, after taking silver alongside Stefan Boermans at the event in Vienna two years ago.

The bronze went to experienced Ukrainians Sergiy Popov & Eduard Reznik. In the third-place match, the number 24 team in the world delivered a 2-0 (22-20, 21-13) upset of number 11 Paolo Nicolai & Samuele Cottafava.

The number eight team in the women’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking, Tokyo 2020 Olympians Nina Brunner & Tanja Huberli, reached their third consecutive and fourth overall EuroBeachVolley final. They also won all six of their matches at the continental championship last week to crown their campaign with a 2-0 (21-12, 21-13) sweep of the gold medal game against Spain’s Daniela Alvarez & Tania Moreno.

Together, 30-year-old Huberli and 27-year-old Brunner won their first title in 2021, as well as silvers in 2018 and 2022. With a different partner, Huberli had one more silver back in 2014. The Swiss duo also have two silver and two bronze-medal podiums on the Beach Pro Tour.

The pair of 21-year-old Spaniards Alvarez & Moreno, ranked number 27 in the world, may have come out as the surprise package in the women’s tournament in Vienna, especially after knocking out incumbents Anastasija & Tina. However, they took the bronze at the U20 European Championship in 2019 and triumphed as U22 European champions last year, so winning their first continental medal at the senior level was just a matter of time.

The stellar German combination of former world and Olympic champion Laura Ludwig and former indoor national team standout Louisa Lippmann, number 55 in the world ranking, grabbed the bronze, their first podium at a major international event as a team. In the third-place game, the Germans produced a 2-1 (21-14, 18-21, 15-11) victory over 2020 European champions and Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallists Joana Mader & Anouk Verge-Depre of Switzerland.

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