News Beach volleyball 14/12/2013 Latvia and China claim gold in Durban Durban, South Africa,December 14, 2013 – Latvia’s Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs and China’sChen Xue and Xinyi Xia claimed the gold medals at the FIVB Beach VolleyballDurban Open on Saturday. The Latvians actually struckgold twice, also winning the 2013 FIVB World Tour title. In the all-Latvianfinal of the Durban Open they defeated compatriots Martins Plavins andAleksandrs Solovejs 2-1 (15-21 21-17 15-10). Brazil’s Pedro Solberg and BrunoOscar Schmidt won the bronze medal. Xue and Xia won back to backgold after winning the Phuket Open early November, in only their third event asa team. The Chinese beat Germany’s Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude 2-0 (21-1821-18) in the final. USA’s Jennifer Kessy and Whitney Pavlik took the bronze. Double gold for Latvia’sSmedins and Samoilovs in Durban Janis Smedins and AleksandrsSamoilovs struck gold twice in Durban on Saturday. After securing the 2013 FIVBWorld Tour ranking title in the morning, the Latvians also won the FIVB BeachVolleyball Durban Open. “To get two titles in the same tournament, that ispretty amazing. It feels very good”, said Smedins. In an all-Latvian final they defeated compatriots Martins Plavins andAleksandrs Solovejs 2-1 (15-21 21-17 15-10) and claimed their third gold medalthis year together with two silvers and one bronze. More Back to back gold for China’sXue and Xia After winning the Phuket Openin November new pair Chen Xue and Xinyi Xia claimed their second gold medal ina row on Saturday at Durban’s New Beach. The Chinese defeated Germany’s ChantalLaboureur and Julia Sude 2-0 (21-18 21-18) in the final of the FIVB BeachVolleyball Durban Open. In the first set both teams played point by point with the Germans targetingyoung Xia, but the 16-year old stood her ground. From 15-15 the Chinese tookthe lead. More All-Latvian men’s final inDurban The men’s final at the FIVBBeach Volleyball Durban Open will be an all-Latvian one, the first in FIVBhistory. The newly crowned 2013 World Tour winners Janis Smedins and AleksandrsSamoilovs will play Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Solovejs for the gold inDurban. Smedins and Samoilovs gathered enough points in the morning with wins overFrance’s Ces/Rowlandson (21-12 21-12) and the Italian Ingrosso-twins (15-2121-18 15-6) to grab the World Tour title before they met the number two on the2013 ranking, Brazil’s Pedro Solberg and Bruno Oscar Schmidt in the semifinal. More China’s Xue/Xia eye anothergold at the Durban Open China’s Chen Xue and XinyiXia are on track for their second gold in a row. The Phuket Open championsdefeated Teresa Mersmann and Isabel Schneider in two sets (21-18 21-15) in thesemifinals at the FIVB Beach Volleyball Durban Open on Saturday. In the final they play another German team, Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude,for the gold. They won 2-1 (21-16 24-26 15-12) against USA’s Jennifer Kessy andWhitney Pavlik. More Latvia’s Smedins andSamoilovs take 2013 FIVB World Tour title Latvia’s Janis Smedins andAleksandrs Samoilovs took the 2013 FIVB World Tour title by reaching thequarterfinals at the FIVB Beach Volleyball Durban Open early Saturday morning. The Latvian pair defeated Andy Ces and Edouard Rowlandson from France 2-0(21-12 21-12) to progress to the last eight, where they will meet the ItalianIngrosso twins. More Out of respect for formerSouth African president Nelson Mandela, who will be buried on Sunday, theDurban Open semifinals and finals were moved forward to Saturday. The Durban Open was the lastevent on the 2013 FIVB calendar. Next year Durban will host another doublegender Open from December 10-14. The 2014 season starts inApril with the Fuzhou Open in China (22-27), followed by theShanghai Grand Slam, which takes place from April 29 – May 4. The 2014 calendar features 10 Grand Slams, aninaugural FIVB Grand Slam Final and 11 Open tournaments. For the first time in FIVB history, two of the GrandSlams (which ones are still to be confirmed) will have a prize pot of $1m,while the other eight will feature a total purse of $800,000 – nearly doublethe prize money of $440,000 on offer for Grand Slams in 2013.FIVB Durban Opentournament pageFIVB Durban Openwomen’s schedule and resultsFIVB Durban Openmen’s schedule and resultsFIVB Durban Open Twitter accountFIVB Facebookaccount Print this Page News {{item.LocalShortDate}} {{item.Title}} All the News