Fort Lauderdale, USA, February 12, 2017 – Germany’s No. 3 seeded Julia Sude and Chantal Laboureur will share the podium of the $600,000 Fort Lauderdale Major with Brazilian teams as the European won the bronze medal of the 2017 international beach volleyball season opener after posting a 2-0 (21-14, 21-14) win over USA’s Brooke Sweat and Summer Ross.
The Germans, who share the same side of the net since 2013, have reached the podium for the sixth time in their careers, with one gold, three silver and two bronze medals in 43 international tournaments.
The European tandem closed its week in Fort Lauderdale with a 5-2 win record. Sude and Laboureur collected their first 720 points in the 2017 world ranking and will split the $20,000 prize for the bronze medal. They had only one and half hours to recover from the semifinal loss to Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk and Eduarda “Duda” Lisboa before the bronze medal match.
“It took us just ten or fifteen minutes to get the last match out of our heads”, stated Laboureur. “Then we started talking about the tactics for the next game and eating some bananas. We knew we had to fight for one more hour to come home with a medal and we are happy that we accomplished that.”
American fans support Sweat and Ross in a packed center court in Fort Lauderdale
The No. 13 seeded Sweat and Ross marched undefeated to the semifinals with five straight wins in Fort Lauderdale before losing back-to-back matches and will share $16,000 for the fourth place. The Americans played their first tournament together in Florida.
“It’s a great start, but I can’t wait to practice on Tuesday so we can get better. The Germans are a great team and came out firing. We’ll try to do better the next time,” said the 24-year-old Ross.