Golden Finish for Floridians on Home Sand

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida., USA, March 4, 2018 - For three years, Floridians Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena have chased an FIVB World Tour title on the beach where they started their careers together.

On Sunday, as Dalhausser said, “Third time’s a charm.”

Dalhausser and Lucena completed a week in which they did not drop a set with a 21-12, 21-17 win over Italy’s Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai to capture the Fort Lauderdale Major.

“It’s the one tournament I’ve wanted to win,” Lucena said. “It’s my hometown where I started playing. This is everything I’d hoped. We finally won. Phil played great all weekend and I played steady enough to keep us in there. There’s a lot of great teams on this Tour and to win is hard. I’m grateful.”

Faced with an early 4-2 deficit in the first set, the Americans rolled off seven consecutive points to take control on the way to their ninth World Tour victory together. For Dalhausser, it was his 38th career victory internationally.

Nicolai and Lupo, the European champions and Rio 2016 silver medalists, were looking for their sixth World Tour title together but ultimately were denied by the presence at the net of Dalhausser, who had six blocks and changed many shots. The Americans had four aces, with three coming from Lucena.

“We served tough, I thought we got them out of system a little bit and if that team’s in system, they’re hard to stop so we did a good job of serving tough,” Lucena said. “They scramble, and they make plays, but Phil was the difference-maker. He had more blocks than Nicolai did.”

Dalhausser and Lucena shared the US$40,000 top prize and Nicolai and Lupo will split US$32,000.

Just before the teams took the court, Latvia’s Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs defeated Brazil’s Pedro Solberg and George Wanderley, 21-17, 21-17, to capture the bronze medal. It was their highest finish since they captured bronze in the 2016 Long Beach Grand Slam.