The top-seeded Pavan and Humana-Paredes concluded a week of complete domination at the Northlands Park, in which they won all their six matches without dropping any sets, by posting a 21-11, 21-16 triumph over USA’s second-seeded Emily Day and Betsi Flint in the final.
“We were so excited to be playing here the entire week,” Pavan commented. “We were so honored to be able to play a World Tour event at home as it doesn’t happen so often. And to win the first medal for a Canadian team in home soil, it’s just amazing.”
It was the fourth victory of a Canadian team in five World Tour finals against American duos, including the one of Pavan and Humana-Paredes over April Ross and Alix Klineman at the World Championships gold medal match.
Pavan dives for the Mikasa in the Edmonton gold medal match
The 32-year-old Pavan and the 26-year-old Humana Paredes have also secured 600 Olympic qualifying points for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games and will split the $10,000 first-place prizes.
“Look at how packed this stadium is,” Humana-Paredes exclaimed after their victory. “It was so much fun to play in front of our home fans this week. It was easy to tell that everyone here really appreciates beach volleyball and we could feel it on the court in every match.”
It was the fifth title for the Canadian stars in 28 FIVB events following victories in Porec in 2017, Xiamen and Gstaad in 2018 and the World Championships two weeks ago. Pavan and Humana-Paredes also triumphed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the first edition of the event to feature beach volleyball tournaments.
The bronze medal of the Edmonton Open went to Japanese Azusa Futami and Akiki Hasegawa, who triumphed over Australians Nicole Laird and Becchara Palmer 21-19, 21-17 to win their second World Tour medal as a team.