FIVB Volleyball Empowerment funded teams occupied the entire podium at the men’s Madrid Futures on Sunday. Latvia’s Edgars Tocs & Gustavs Auzins celebrated their first ever on the Beach Pro Tour medal together. Mart Tiisaar & Dimitriy Korotkov of Estonia and Tom Sonneville & Quinten Groenewold earned silver and bronze, respectively.
The Volleyball Federation of Latvia has so far been allocated a total of USD 210,000 in coach support for their national teams in beach volleyball from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment, in addition to USD 5,500 in beach volleyball equipment. Their duos are working under the guidance of coach Genadijs Samoilovs. The Estonian Volleyball Federation’s beach volleyball department has so far been funded with a total of USD 168,000 in FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national teams, currently working under the supervision of Beijing 2008 Olympian Rivo Vesik. Estonia’s beach volleyball has also received USD 11,500 in beach volleyball equipment. The Netherlands Volleyball Federation (Nevobo) has been granted a total of USD 664,000 in national beach volleyball teams coach support from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment. Their men’s pairs are trained by coach Michiel van der Kuip, a 1995 European champion as a player.
Seeded 10th in the main draw bracket, Tocs & Auzins cruised through the tournament undefeated in the five matches played. In the semifinals, the Latvians produced a hard-fought 2-1 (22-24, 21-19, 15-11) comeback against fourth-seeded Bence Tari & Lukas Niemeier of Hungary, and in the gold medal showdown, they registered a 2-0 (21-11, 21-0) victory over Tiisaar & Korotkov, following the injury-prompted withdrawal of the ninth-seeded Estonians from the match. For 37-year-old Tocs, a Tokyo 2020 Olympic semifinalist, it was the first ever gold on the Beach Pro Tour, while his 21-year-old teammate Auzins, a two-time world champion and two-time European champion for various age categories, had already topped a Beach Pro Tour podium once, alongside his youth partner Kristians Fokerots.
Tiisaar & Korotkov settled for silver, their second Beach Pro Tour hardware as a duo, after the bronze they claimed at their previous appearance, at the Warsaw Futures in September. They crowned their four-game winning streak on the way to the Madrid final with a 2-0 (21-15, 22-20) upset of second-seeded Sonneville & Groenewold in the semis.
18-year-old Sonneville and 22-year-old Groenewold bounced back with a 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) sweep of the third-place playoff against Tari & Niemeier to bring home the bronze, their second Beach Pro Tour medal.
27 men’s duos representing 17 different federations took part in last week’s Madrid Futures.
The Spanish capital will also host a women’s Futures event – this week, from May 14 to 17.
