São Paulo, Brazil, September 28, 2014 — When 72 matches were all said and done, the last team standing Sunday was Netherlands’ Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst as they upset home-country icons in Brazil’s Ricardo Santos/Emanuel Rego to claim the men’s gold medal at the double-gender US$800,000 FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam.
Appearing in Brazil at least once a year for 28 consecutive years, the 2014 FIVB World Tour week-long stop was held in São Paulo in a purpose-built venue on the grounds of the Barueri Arena.
The last of 10 FIVB Grand Slams on the 2014 FIVB World Tour calendar the internationally-televised FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam started on Tuesday. On Sunday, the women’s and men’s gold medal matches and awarding ceremony closed the FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam event. Winning the women’s gold medal was Brazil’s Larissa Franca/Talita Antunes.
FIVB PURSE
Gold medal winning teams in each gender in São Paulo will split $57,000, silver will receive $43,000, bronze medalists get $32,000 and the fourth place finishers will earn $24,000 of the $800,000 total purse.
GOLD MEDAL RESULTS
In men’s gold medal match in front of a capacity stadium center court crowd at the Barueri complex, Netherlands’ 13th-seeded Nummerdor/Varenhorst upset home-country favorites Brazil’s legendary Olympic champions and sixth-seeded Ricardo/Emanuel surprising in straight sets, 21-17, 21-13 in a surprisingly quick 33-minute finale.
Netherlands’ Nummerdor/Varenhorst tandem was playing in just their second tournament together with a fifth-place finish in their first one and they finished 6-1 in this tournament. Individually, Nummerdor is a veteran Olympian from the Netherlands, who was playing in his 80th career FIVB tournament and now has 10 career FIVB gold medals. Varenhorst was playing in his 47th FIVB tournament with a career best third place in Fuzhou this year prior to day’s gold medal effort.
Brazil’s legendary Ricardo/Emanuel duo is back playing again as a team after a five year absence. They finished 6-1 here on their home sand in Brazil, winning four in three sets in their first tournament back. Overall, this was their 89th FIVB tournament together with 65 final four finishes and this was their 13th silver medal as a team. Individually, this was the 208th FIVB tournament for Ricardo who has won 56 FIVB gold medals. For Emanuel, this was his 245th FIVB event and he has 77 FIVB career gold medals.
GOLD MEDAL RECAP
The anticipated crowd-pleasing match for the men’s gold medal did according to the plan of the home-country fans as Netherlands’ Nummerdor/Varenhorst pulled away from Brazil’s home-country favorites Ricardo/Emanuel to win it in two sets. The first set was close during much of it as there were 12 ties and five lead changes. With the score tied at 13-13, Netherlands had a run of three points to go up 16-13 and kept that margin util scoring the last two points for a four-point margin.
With Varenhorst blocking and Nummerdor digging, the match stayed in the favor of the Dutch as they scored the first two points of the second set. There were no ties or lead changes in the second set although Brazil’s Ricardo/Emanuel had a run of three to close to 6-7 but the Netherlands responded with three blocks by Varenhorst to pull to 10-6 and gradually pulled away, scoring the final two point of the set to win the match on two hard kills by Varenhorst.
THEY SAID IT
Christiaan Varenhorst (NED): “I'm just the happiest man in the world right now. It wasn't easy at all, but we had a good game plan and we stuck to it. We played our game, I think that's the most important thing in finals, and I have to learn this. Playing against Brazil was great. I like to be the bad guy ruining the party, and especially in two years (at the Olympics). Right now, all my thinking stops a bit, I'm just going to enjoy the moment and we're going to talk about this with the coaches and see what happens. I want to win medals and I'm going to play with the guy who I think gives me the biggest chance.”
Reinder Nummerdor (NED): “I feel amazing, I didn't expect this, a final so dominant, we played perfect and they didn't play their best level, but that was due to our game. We played it perfectly as we planned. My partner was on fire with the blocks and I dug some balls and everything worked out great, and then it gets easier on your side-out, there's less pressure because you get so far ahead. I've played many times in Brazil, always in front of a packed house. It's an amazing public but it can go both ways, it can be pressure for them because they are playing for their home crowd, or they can be on fire. For us it was just like a normal game, and that's the key point, we knew we had a shot to beat them and we executed perfectly.
I would never have imagined this when we decided to form a team. I knew he (Varenhorst) was really talented and a big blocker, I always said if I continue my career, I want to play with this guy, but he was playing with someone else. Now we will evaluate, but you can see there is a chemistry between us otherwise you cannot play like this in just three or four weeks, so there is some feeling between us that is working and that is one of the most important things in the team in beach volleyball.”
Emanuel (BRA): “Today we faced a team with a giant on the other side, and they played very well. We had some difficulties in the return of the ball and we couldn't get into our rhythm, it happens. Our experience today ended up not helping much because we changed our strategy and it didn't work. We wanted to win, but we know that we are developing step by step, that our evolution will be gradual. Overall though, we had a very good tournament in our return to the FIVB World Tour as a team.”
BRAZILIAN HOMECOMING
As the host nation, Brazil has six teams in the men’s main draw. Brazil had four men’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw and two more teams emerged from Tuesday’s qualification tournament. For the men, the Brazilian teams in the main draw and their record overall was 13-11 and individually is Marcio Araujo/Fabio Luiz Magalhaes (0-3), Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt (3-1), Pedro Salgado/Alvaro Filho (1-2) and Ricardo Santos/Emanuel Rego (6-1). The men’s qualification teams from Brazil who advanced and their overall tournament records were Gustavo Carvalhaes/Allison Cittadin (2-2) and Vitor Felipe/Evandro Goncalves (1-2).
FIVB LIKES BRAZIL
The FIVB São Paulo Grand Slam was the 310th FIVB men’s tournament since its first event in 1987 and the 274th FIVB women’s tournament since FIVB began women’s competitions in 1992. There has been at least one FIVB World Tour event in Brazil since it started 28 years ago and this was the 36th men’s and 31st women’s FIVB World Tour event held in Brazil.
HOME COUNTRY MEN DOMINATE IN BRAZIL
With extremely enthusiastic standing-room-only crowds in the stadium center courts each event, Brazil has earned 22 men’s gold medals out of 36 events held in Brazil followed by the USA with 11, Germany with two gold medals and now the Netherlands with one. Brazil has swept the podium four times in men’s competition. Most recently, the Brazilian men secured the medals in 2009 in Brasília.
NEXT UP
With the grand slam portion of the 2014 FIVB World Tour now complete, the tour continues through December with five FIVB Open events spread across the globe. Remaining on the 2014 calendar are four double-gender FIVB Open events along with one men-only FIVB Open tournament.
Next up, the 2014 FIVB World Tour will travel to China for the double-gender FIVB Xiamen Open (Oct. 7-12), followed by the double-gender FIVB Parana Open (Oct. 28-Nov. 2).
After those two events, the 2014 FIVB World Tour will head to Qatar for the men-only FIVB Doha Open (Nov. 4-8) then on to India for the double-gender FIVB Chennai Open (Nov. 25-30) before concluding in South Africa with the double-gender FIVB Mangaung Open (Dec. 9-14).