Latvia’s Auzins & Fokerots do it again – grab another world title, this time without dropping a set!

Without dropping a single set in seven matches played at the 2025 FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships in Puebla, Gustavs Auzins & Kristians Fokerots of Latvia triumphed with the title. It was the second world title for the talented Latvians, after their U19 victory three years ago. It was also the second world title for Latvia at the junior men’s level, after the triumph of Martins Plavins & Aleksandrs Samoilovs in 2005. Auzins & Fokerots are two-time age-group European champions too, and have a couple of podiums together on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour.

• Watch the 2025 FIVB U21 Beach Volleyball World Championships on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel

The silver went to Poland’s Szymon Beta & Artem Besarab and it was the first world-level medal for them as a pair.

Home heroes Antonio Lares & Carlos Andres Ayala stumbled in the semifinals for the first time in this tournament, but bounced back to claim the bronze, an important build-up on the fourth place they took at last year’s U19 World Championship in Shangluo, China.

Sunday’s men’s final also offered a coaching duel between two former U21 world champions – Latvia’s Martins Plavins, who triumphed in 2005, and Poland’s Jakub Szalankiewicz, who lifted the trophy in 2009. Auzins & Fokerots maintained a slight lead for most of the first set of the gold medal showdown, but Beta & Besarab managed to stay close behind and even caught up a few times, but in the end, a Polish error in attack handed the set to the Latvians by the narrowest of margins. Auzins & Fokerots put away four points in a row to take a 9-5 lead in the second set and pushed on to reach a triple match point at 20-17. The Poles denied it twice, but finally a block-out shot by Auzins put an end to it at 2-0 (21-19, 21-19).

“I feel amazing. I am just sinking all these emotions, but we are world champions and I am just really happy!” Fokerots told FIVB.com.

“We were preparing for this moment almost for at least a year for me. So, we were just really focused and tried to do our best and enjoyed the game… And we just managed to win!” Auzins added.

Once again inspired by the fantastic home crowd that filled up the center court stands on this beautiful Sunday in Cholula, 19-year-old Lares & Carlos Andres hammered out an emphatic 2-0 (21-16, 21-13) shutout of last year’s U19 world champions Szymon Pietraszek & Jakub Krzeminski of Poland in the third-place match to secure Mexico’s third podium in the history of the competition, after Josue Gaxiola & Jose Luis Rubio's silver in 2016 and Miguel Sarabia & Raymond Stephens's bronze in 2019. For Lares & Carlos Andres themselves, it was the first world-level medal. They have not made a Beach Pro Tour podium yet, but this season they have collected four continental NORCECA Tour medals so far.

The semifinals of the U21 World Championship took place earlier on Sunday. In an all-Polish duel, 20-year-old Beta & Besarab were merciless for their slightly younger compatriots, 19-year-old Pietraszek & Krzeminski, and mastered a 2-0 (21-16, 21-15) sweep. After that, a much anticipated battle between two teams that had not lost a single set at the tournament that far went 2-0 (21-17, 21-19) the way of Auzins & Fokerots against Lares & Carlos Andres.

2025 FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championship: all results

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