Sweden Earns First Ever FIVB Medal in Aydin, Serbia Wins Men’s Title

  0 Wendy Mayer | May 20th, 2018 | FIVB World Tour, News, Pro Beach

Aydin One-Star

Serbia’s Stefan Basta/Lazar Kolaric, which started the tournament in the qualifying rounds, won their first FIVB World Tour gold medal, besting Iran’s Rahman Raoufi/Abolhamed Mirzaali in the championship match Sunday morning.

Basta/Kolaric, earn their second straight podium finish, following a runner-up effort at the Lucerne Three-Star last week. Meanwhile, the Iranians picked up their second FIVB medal as a duo, following a bronze at the Satun One Star on April 11.

Rounding out the men’s podium were Ruslan Bykanov/Maksim Hudyakov of Russia, which denied homestanding Hasan Mermer/Safa Urlu the honor of the bronze with 23-21, 21-14 win.

On the women’s side, a lot was still be to be decided as the day began with both semifinal and podium matches on slate for Sunday, but one thing was for certain, a Swedish team would be going home with a medal for the first time in the country’s history on either the men’s or women’s side.

Top seeded Ksenia Dabizha/Daria Mastikova (Russia), No. 2 Leila Ortega/Maylen Tamayo (Cuba), No. 10 Kristina Thurin/Susanna Thurin (Sweden) and qualifiers Tadva Yoken/Sigrid Simonsson (Sweden) made up the semifinal field. 

Dabizha/Mastikova bested the Thurin twins and Leila/Maylen downed Yoken/Simonsson in straight sets in the semis, relegating the Swedish sides to compete for a still historic bronze.

In the end, the Thurins outlasted their countrywomen in tiebreak (18-21, 26-24, 15-11) for the medal.

In the championship match, it was Cuba’s Leila/Maylen that secured the top spot with a 21-18, 21-16 win. This is just the second FIVB event for the Cubans, following a ninth-place effort at the Bangkok Open last week.

Meanwhile, Dabizha/Mastikova earned their third medal of the season following gold at the Langkawi One Star (April 29) and bronze at the Phnom Penh Two-Star (May 6).

 

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About Wendy Mayer

Wendy Mayer

Wendy Mayer has worked in athletics media relations for the last 20 years. The Northwest Missouri State alumna is currently senior writer for Volleymob.com after spending the last 15 years with Purdue athletics.

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