Melissa & Brandie triumph on home sand

MONTREAL, Canada, July 31, 2023.- Fourth-seeded Canadians Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson delighted the home crowd in Montreal with Elite16 gold as the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour visited Canada again.

It was Melissa & Brandie’s second gold on the Tour as a pair, after they topped the podium at the Jurmala Challenge in June, and third overall medal, after they also claimed the bronze at the Ostrava Elite16, also in June.

The silver medals went to American qualifiers Betsi Flint & Julia Scoles, who started the tournament as the sixth seed in the qualification bracket, moved on to take the 14th seed in the main draw line-up and made it all the way to the final. They celebrated their second Beach Pro Tour podium together, after taking another silver at their team’s debut at the Torquay Elite16 in December.

A three-set battle unfolded in the women’s final on Sunday with Melissa & Brandie, mastering a 2-1 (21-15, 16-21, 15-13) victory, cheered on by the fantastic Canadian fans on the stands. In the first set, they broke away with a 4-0 run and never looked back. In the second, however, Scoles & Flint bounced back convincingly to draw level and push the match to a tie-breaker resolution.

In the third set, the lead went back and forth until Brandie’s monster block closed the match Canada’s way.

The match winner was one of Brandie’s five kill blocks in the game. She also added an ace and 21 successful attacks towards a match-high 27 points, while Melissa produced 17 points, all in offence. Scoles & Flint registered 21 and 19 points, respectively.

In men Top-seeded Anders Mol & Chrisian Sorum took revenge from second-seeded Miles Partain & Andrew Benesh of the United States, for the defeat in the Gstaad Elite16 final earlier this month and beat the Americans in the Montreal Elite16 final.

For Partain & Benesh, the Montreal silver was the third consecutive Elite16 podium finish. They also took the bronze in Ostrava and the gold in Gstaad at their previous two Beach Pro Tour appearances. The pair also took gold at the first Dubai Challenge last year.

In the first set of Sunday’s final, Mol & Sorum recovered from a three-point deficit to turn things around. A six-point series brought them to set point, which they converted on the second go. Benesh & Partain bounced back to dominate set two and level the match, but in the tie-breaker, they were not allowed to take the lead even for a moment as the Beachvolley Vikings pushed through to a 2-1 (21-17, 15-21, 15-10) victory.  Mol owned the net with his excellent blocking performance. He raised eight kill blocks towards a 25-point match high. Sorum added another 19 points, all in offence. On the Americans’ side, Benesh led the scoring with 21 points, including four blocks and the only two aces in the game.