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Nuss & Brasher bring home first Beach Pro Tour gold for 2025
BRASILIA, Brazil, April 20, 2025.- After taking bronze in Quintana
Roo and silver in Saquarema, USA’s Kristen Nuss & Taryn Brasher
snatched the gold in Brasilia as the third Elite event of the year
on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour came to a close in the
Brazilian capital on Sunday. This way, the American Paris 2024
Olympians topped the podium for the first time since the 2024 Tour
Finals in Doha and added the ninth gold and the 15th medal
overall to their impressive Beach Pro Tour collection.
Watch the Brasilia Elite on VBTV
Carol Solberg & Rebecca Cavalcanti put up a solid fight in the final
but had to settle for silver in front of the Brazilian home crowd.
It was already their second medal out of only four Tour appearances
together as a team. Three weeks ago, the experienced Brazilians
triumphed at the Quintana Roo Elite.
Another Brazilian team, reigning Olympic champions Ana Patricia
Ramos & Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda), completed the podium with
bronze, their first Beach Pro Tour medal in almost a year, or since
they conquered the gold at this same venue in May 2024. The former
world champions and former number one team in the World Ranking have
now piled up a remarkable showcase of eight gold, two silver and
five bronze medals on the Tour.
Second-seeded Nuss & Brasher overcome their fifth-seeded opponents’
strong performance and the noise from a fantastic Brazilian home
crowd on the stands during Sunday’s gold medal showdown to put
together a narrow 2-0 (22-20, 21-19) victory. The Americans were in
the lead through most of the first set of the match, but in the
money, Carol & Barbara took control and reached the first set point
at 19-18. Nuss & Brasher reacted with three points in a row and
closed the set with an ace from Nuss. Twice in the second set, the
US team opened a wide lead and twice the home favorites closed the
gap as it eventually came down to a 19-19 tie. Nuss & Brasher stayed
focus and soon closed the set and the match with a powerful spike
from Nuss for the winning point.
The
better overall performance in offense made the big difference in
tilting the balance Nuss & Brasher’s way, with Brasher emerging as
the best scorer of the match with 24 points and the best attacker of
the match with 20 kills, as well as the best blocker of the match
with three stuffs to her name. Carol led the Brazilian pair with 17
points, including two aces and two kill blocks.
“Oh,
my goodness! It was so difficult! If we could stop playing them
multiple times, that would be great! They are incredible and we knew
that in front of this home crowd it would be pretty rowdy and they
would bring the passion like they always do. So we just tried to
stick with each other and trust ourselves,” Nuss said on the court
after the match.
“Kristen came in today and woke me up with a great enthusiastic
‘let’s go get gold today!’ But we had to fight against an amazing
Brazilian team – they are both just so incredible – and we had to
play in front of Brazilian fans that are just so rowdy, and so fun,
and just love the game,” Brasher added.
The
bronze medal game earlier on Sunday lasted three sets as Dutch
qualifiers Emi van Driel & Wies Bekhuis, seeded 23rd in
the 24-team main draw, put up a tough fight and even won the first
set against the mighty Olympic champions, before 10th-seeded
Ana Patricia & Duda managed to turn the course of the match around
and celebrate a 2-1 (19-21, 21-15, 15-12) victory. It was mostly the
unforced errors of the Dutch and the better blocking of the
Brazilians that prompted the outcome of this match. Ana Patricia
raised six kill blocks during the game and topped the charts with a
match-high total of 20 points.
VW Beach Pro Tour Brasilia Elite: schedule and
results
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