One of the world’s most consistent tandems, the Spaniards Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira, had to wait until the Moscow Grand Slam this past weekend to be in possession of their first World Tour gold together. They did so at one of the most interesting and balanced Grand Slams ever.
To be statistically precise, Pablo Herrera, one of the international beach volleyball legends, not only in Europe, had already won two World Tour gold medals but with different partners. The 32-year-old defensive specialist grabbed the title at the Norwegian Kristiansand Open in 2008 with his former teammate Raul Mesa (with whom he also dominated at the 2002 Junior World Championship in Catania, Italy) and at the Chinese Lianyungang Open back in 2004 with Javier Bosma. European champions from 2013, Herrera and Gavira finally won a World Tour event which ended the team’s drought ever since they started their partnership in 2009. A series of great results saw the Spanish duo finish with silver and bronze medals on a number of occasions over the years and now they added the most valuable accolade, alongside their awards from Klagenfurt on the European stage from two years ago, to their medals room. In fact, the Russian capital seems to be a lucky place for the 2004 Olympic silver medalist Pablo Herrera because it was there in 2005 when he and the aforementioned Raul Mesa were crowned European champions for the first time in Spanish beach volleyball history.
In a 43-minute finale on the center court at the Vodny Stadium Beach Sports Center, the 12th-seeded Herrera-Gavira posted a 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) win over the 10th-seeded Brazilians Pedro-Evandro in the first big tournament of the season. The title is also third for Europe in as many World Tour events in 2015, following the success of the Germans Bรถckermann-Flรผggen at the Fuzhou Open and the Italians Ranghieri-Caminati at the Lucerne Open.
Patience and concentration were mostly the factors that sent the title in Spanish hands. Their Brazilian opponents in the final on Sunday are enjoying their first only season together on the international circuit. Pedro Salgado and the giant Evandro Goncalves, standing at 210 cm, paired up at the end of 2014 for the domestic Brazilian Circuito Banco do Brasil beach volleyball championship and have scored an impressive run of victories ever since. Their win at the pre-season Brazil vs. USA friendly tournament on the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro foreshadowed their good shape at the beginning of 2015. On the way to the final on Sunday Pedro-Evandro eliminated two fellow Brazilian teams. Ricardo-Emanuel and Alison-Bruno were knocked out consecutively in the quarterfinals and the semifinals respectively. A little more was needed, however, for Pedro-Evandro to seize the first Grand Slam and to cease the current European dominance.
The bronze medal encounter turned out to be another successful affair for Europe. Germany’ top team, Jonathan Erdmann and Kay Matysik, defeated Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt in straight sets (21-19, 21-17). Thus, the Germans repeated their finish from last year’s first Grand Slam in Shanghai. Erdmann-Matysik are also reigning World Championship bronze medalists and are eager to improve their Stare Jablonki’s record from 2013.
Spectators and beach volleyball enthusiasts could be delighted with the level of display in Moscow. A lot of games offered drama and great rallies, most sets ended with two-point margins. The week did not go without surprises either. The 1st-seeded Dalhausser-Rosenthal from USA were stunned in the opener by the teenage Russians Stoyanovskiy-Yarzutkin. A second defeat later on against Walkenhorst-Windscheif from Germany left the Americans on the bottom of the preliminary Pool A and hence left them out of the competition after only three games. Identical was the fate of the Moscow Grand Slam defending champions, the home heroes Semenov-Krasilnikov. The 8th-seeded Russians beat Fane-Jackson from Venezuela on the opening day, but who could have imagined that it was going to be their last celebration. Defeats to Mexico’s Virgen-Ontiveros and the eventual bronze medalists Erdmann-Matysik ended the Russian hopes of another glorious event.
The first of the Grand Slams has already finished and now the attention moves to this week’s first-ever Swatch Major event in the Croatian coastal city of Porec. Stavanger in Norway (next week) and the Swiss Alpine Gstaad (in the middle of July) are the remaining two events of the inaugural Major series.
