FIVB World Tour Finals
- Rothenbaum Stadium; Hamburg, Germany
- August 15-19, 2018
- Schedule/Results
- Preview
- Women’s Field
The 2018 FIVB World Tour Finals champions were crowned over the weekend. Read a brief recap of each title match below and take a look at some of the highlights from the championship matches.
Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk/Eduarda ‘Duda’ Santos Lisboa posted a 21-15, 21-19 win over No. 2 Barbora Hermannova/Marketa Slukova for the FIVB World Tour Finals crown and the No. 1 world ranking on Sunday.
The victory marks the second World Tour medal for the pairing, which won silver in 2017, and the third for 35-year old Agatha, who also boasts a bronze from 2015. Alongside 20-year old Duda, Agatha has managed four podium finishes in 2018, including gold at home in Itapema (May 20), silver in Moscow (Aug. 12) and bronze in Warsaw (July 1). Out of their 11 tournaments, the pair was fifth of better nine times.
“It is a great feeling to finally win the top spot on the Hamburg podium,” Agatha said. “Duda is an amazing partner and she is so young. The win today caps a very good season for us as we prepare for the future.”
With the gold medal comes a $150,000 purse. According to the FIVB, by virtue of her half of the winning check, Duda becomes the youngest player to be awarded a “large” paycheck at 20 years and 18 days, snapping the record set by men’s FIVB Finals champion Anders Mol (21 year, 1 month, 16 days) on Saturday night.
Watch highlights from the title match below.
On the men’s side, it was the youngsters from Norway who claimed the gold medal, their fourth straight event title, including two Major titles and the CEV European Championship.
Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sorum won their fourth straight gold medal and biggest yet, taking the FIVB World Tour Finals title with two wins on Saturday.
“I don’t know what has happened the last month,” 21-year old Mol said. “It’s been unreal. The whole journey has been unreal for us. We did not expect this. Our goal for the season was to take a medal and we did that already in Brazil in Itapema in May. We had to reach for a higher goal and of course that was to take a gold medal.”
The Norwegians hung on for a 21-16, 15-21, 15-9 win over top seeded Germans Julius Thole/Clemens Wickler in the first semifinal of the day and then closed out the tournament with a gold medal win sweep of ninth-seeded Michal Bryl/Grzegorz Fijalek (21-19, 21-17).
The gold medal also wins the pair a $150,000 purse, bringing their winning since July 15 to $253,000, including titles at the Gstaad and Vienna Majors and the CEV European Championships. According to the FIVB, the $253,000 pileup tops the previous record of most money in four straight events set by Karch Kiraly/Kent Steffes at the end of the 1993 and beginning of the 1994 seasons ($245,000).
Watch highlights from the gold medal match below.
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