The Black Sea coastal city of Constanta in Romania organized the tournaments in the women’s Pool A and the men’s Pool F of the CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup, won by the national teams of Slovenia (pictured in the main photo; credits: Elis Iordache / Odbojkarska zveza Slovenije – Volleyball Federation of Slovenia) and Portugal, respectively, who booked their tickets to July’s Finals in Budapest, Hungary.
Pool A of the women’s CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup featured the national teams of Croatia, Czechia, Slovenia and hosts Romania, competing in a country-versus-country round-robin format.
In the very first tie on the program, Slovenia and Czechia traded hard-fought three-set victories. Michaela Brinkova & Karin Zolnercikova put the Czech team in the lead with a 2-1 (18-21, 21-17, 15-9) win of their rubber against Tjasa Kotnik & Anja Puckmeister. Ziva Javornik & Maja Marolt levelled the tie with a 2-1 (18-21, 21-17, 15-12) win over Valerie Dvornikova & Veronika Kleiblova.
Slovenia went on to win all of their remaining rubbers in Constanta – against Romania and Croatia – in straight sets. Czechia swept their tie with Croatia and the first rubber of the tie with Romania, so it all came down to the very last rubber of the tournament, between Czechia and Romania. The home pairing of Francesca Alupei & Beata Vaida handed Dvornikova & Kleiblova a 2-1 (21-17, 23-25, 15-9) defeat, leaving Czechia in second place and propelling Slovenia to the Finals in Hungary.
Belgium, Moldova, the Netherlands and Portugal competed in the men’s Pool F tournament in Constanta.
In the first two legs of the round-robin competition, Portugal defeated both Belgium and Moldova by 2-0 in rubbers won, while the favorite Dutch team beat Moldova, but drew 1-1 level with their neighbors from Belgium.
Sunday’s deciding tie between Portugal and the Netherlands determined the tournament winners with its first rubber, in which Portugal’s Tomas Sousa & Francisco Pombeiro came back from a set down to celebrate a 2-1 (16-21, 21-14, 15-10) victory over Netherlands’ Jake Anfiloff & Joran Maurice. Following the withdrawal of Dutchmen Leon Luini & Matthew Immers from the last rubber, Portugal shaped up their victorious quest with a 2-0 (21-0, 21-0) forfeit win for Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos on the way to Budapest.
The CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup continues next week with the remaining four pools (two per gender) to be held in Alanya, Turkiye from June 5 to 7.
