Olympic Champs Alison/Bruno Schmidt Win 2016 World Tour Finals

  0 Braden Keith | September 18th, 2016 | Beach, News, Pro, Pro Beach

2016 FIVB BEACH VOLLEYBALL WORLD TOUR FINALS

Alison/Bruno Schmidt (Brazil) def. Evandro/Pedro Solberg (Brazil) 2-0

  • 21-19, 21-18
  • Alison/Bruno Schmidt take 2016 FIVB World title, gold medal, $100,000 check

Just as it was in the women’s tournament earlier in the day, the Olympic champions on the men’s side validated their success

“The main thing I said at the beginning was ‘Alison, let’s just have some fun. We don’t have to prove anything to anybody. Let’s just play with our hearts like we always do,” Bruno said. “And when we play like this, we know we play strong and competitive.”

“You know what?” Bruno said. “Me and Alison like to play tournament by tournament, step by step, improve, even the next year we’ll try to get better with our bodies and everything. We don’t want to get stuck on results or anything. The roller coaster goes on, so those things push me and Alison forward so we’ll continue to think like this.”

When questioned whether or not that one-at-a-time mentality allowed them to reflect on their historic season:

“Well, for sure,” Bruno said with a laugh. “The Olympics were the results of our career. We didn’t realize what we did, but it was so stressful, we were so nervous, we wanted that title so much. The people (around us) want to help us but at the same time, they put so much pressure on our shoulders.”

Playing against their Brazilian countrymates, Alison and Bruno will take $100,000 back to Brazil, while Evandro and Pedro Solberg will receive $50,000 for their efforts.

The match opened early in favor of the underdogs, Pedro Solberg and Evandro, with Bruno making two early errors and the 6’11” Evandro getting two big, early blocks.

While a balanced scoring effort had led Alison and Bruno throughout this tournament, on Sunday afternoon they opened that up and Bruno dominated the hitting, especially in the second set where he scored 10 of the pair’s 12 attack points.

That was the story as Evandro/Pedro Solberg built a small early lead, but then suddenly Bruno got into his rhythm offensively, and Alison went big at the net defensively, as the Olympic champs took over the match.

The second set was back-and-forth, but always felt controlled by Alison and Bruno. The last time they trailed was at 8-9, and another Alison block pushed them to set, and match, points.

A Pedro Solberg attack and an Evandro block late almost pushed the match to extra points, but a Bruno cut-shot nailed the title down on Polson Pier.

The team has now pulled in a whopping $751,500 in earnings in the last 2 years alone, and the duo’s $992,500 in career earnings as a team ranks them 13th in the all-time rankings.

Individually, Alison Cerutti is up to $1,092, 300 for his career, which ranks him 15th on the all-time rankings (and 4th among Brazilians).

Match and post-match Highlights Below:

 

 

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

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