Pinarella di Cervia, Italy, July 28, 2019 – Maksim Hudyakov and Igor Velichko lived up to their status as first seeds when they won gold at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 1-Star Pinarella di Cervia tournament on Sunday.
The Russian pair beat Austria’s Florian Ertl and Johannes Kratz 2-1 (22-20, 15-21, 15-12). They had both won World Tour medals with previous partners, but victory in front of 2,000 fans in the beachside resort on Italy’s north-east coast means they have won their first medal since they teamed up in May.
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Ertl and Kratz were unable to complete a run that began in the qualification rounds, but their silver is their first World Tour medal.
Maxim Sivolap and Artem Yarzutkin’s 2-0 (21-19, 21-14) defeat of South Africa’s Grand Goldschmidt and Leo Williams meant that there were two Russian teams on the victory podium. It is the fifth time that they have finished on a World Tour podium in 2019.
