Having dominated at the World Tour over the last two months, the newly crowned world champions Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt returned back home for the Rio Open with the intention to add a sixth consecutive pair of gold medals. Little did the super favourites know, however, that their outstanding run was approaching its end and that it would happen exactly in front of their own fans.
The Rio de Janeiro Open served as a general test for next year’s Olympic Games in the same city. FIVB was forced to come up with the decision due to the failed fourth Major Series event in the first week of September which would have resulted in a gap on the World Tour’s calendar. Thus, the idea of the Rio Open was born, the third Open in 2015 so far. As it was intended as a rehearsal for the 2016 Games only, the Open featured a 24-teams Main Draw competition format instead of the usual 32-teams one. Several of the best European and North American tandems declined participation and saved themselves the long flight to Brazil. The Rio Open was the last event whose ranking points would matter for the World Tour Swatch Finals in Fort Lauderdale, USA, at the end of September – the final grand event that would feature the world’s top 8 pairs. With the Finals’ quotas already decided though, only certain non-South American teams in pursuit of Olympic points arrived at Copacabana. This created an opportunity for many Brazilian twosomes to enter the qualification rounds, including some familiar faces who no longer compete regularly on international level, such as Marcio Araujo, playing with Luciano de Paula, and Pedro Cunha, who appeared alongside Allison Francioni.
With the Rio Open being the 15th FIVB World Tour event in the Brazilian coastal city in history, European teams had fancied podium placements on one occasion only. It was usually pairs from the USA and the host nation mostly that would occupy the medal steps. Before the Open in 2015, only Germany’s Markus Dieckmann and Jonas Reckermann captured gold in an all-European final against Switzerland’s Kobel-Heuscher in 2004. Germany had representatives on the podium this time around as well and even if they failed to win the final, scored an impressive semifinal win against Alison-Bruno.
Bruno Oscar Schmidt stated minutes after claiming the Olsztyn Grand Slam title that his body found it hard to ignore the pain and the exhaustion of all recent tournaments, flights, and time zones he had to come across lately. Obviously, there wasn’t much energy left in his veins once the world champions reached the semifinal. Alison-Bruno were up against a very energetic German tandem and seemed out of focus throughout some parts of the match. Way too many unforced errors committed by both Brazilians was the reason for the shocking 1-2 defeat (16-21, 21-13, 10-15) which sent Bรถckermann-Flรผggen, winners of the season opener at Fuzhou, China, to another final. Markus Bรถckermann and Lars Flรผggen were close to the medals only once more this season, at the Long Beach Grand Slam where they lost in the quarterfinals and stayed 5th, but with these two finals they are the most successful German team on the Tour in 2015.
“Thankfully, we recovered from an awful second set,” said the 29-year old blocker Bockermann. “Alison just kept blocking me and I did not respond. We won a gold medal earlier this season in China, but this win against the best team in the world is our biggest victory as we won in front of the Brazilian audience. Now, we must recover and defeat the European champions tomorrow.”
Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins were just too good for the Germans. The Latvians took their revenge for the defeat against Bรถckermann-Flรผggen in the preliminary Pool C by grabbing the gold medals in straight sets (21-15, 25-23). The back-to-back defending World Tour winners, whose World Tour superiority seems to be expiring soon, dropped their only sets at the Open in said preliminary pool match and finished an almost perfect week in Brazil. This was the Latvians’ only gold medal this summer, apart from the European Championship title in Klagenfurt, as they also achieved silver at the Gstaad Grand Slam where they had to succumb to the new masters of the beach volleyball world Alison-Bruno. The last time they had won gold on the Tour was in May 2014 at the Puerto Vallarta Open in Mexico. Rio de Janeiro turns into a favourite destination for Aleksandrs Samoilovs, nicknamed the ‘Lion King’ for his hairstyle, as he and his partner Martins Plavins won the 2005 Junior World Championship there.
Brazil were secured a medal from the Open as the two local teams in the semifinals met at the bronze medal encounter. Clearly out of synchronization, Alison-Bruno left the competition without a medal as they lost in three sets against the surprise package Saymon-Guto Carvalhaes (14-21, 21-17, 8-15). The 21-year-old Saymon Barbosa Santos and the 22-year-old Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes won their first-ever pair of World Tour medals. The two youngsters launched their partnership only in the middle of the 2015 season (in August) and won their first event together at Circuito Banco do Brasil, the domestic Tour, again in Rio de Janeiro.
The World Tour continues this week with the inaugural Sochi Open in Russia. As usual, Opens do not attract the attention of most elite athletes, but due to the Olympic qualifications taking place as part of the Tour’s programme interesting matches are to come on the Black Sea coast.
