Germany's Anna Behlen and Sarah Schneider swept through the qualification stages to strike gold at the two-star Anchor International Beach Volleyball Carnival, which concluded on Phnom Penh’s Diamond Island (Koh Pich) on Sunday.
The carnival’s climax was reached during the busiest weekend in the FIVB World tour history as 28 men’s and women’s teams from 15 countries were vying for International Beach Volleyball podium places in four different countries including Cambodia, the others being the Philippines, Turkey and the US.
It was a dream debut in the $25,000 women-only World Tour event for the German pair from Hamburg after they beat Japan’s third-seeded Sayaka Mizoe and Suzuka Hashimoto 17-21,21-19,15-8 in the final to pick up the winner’s purse of $ 4,000.
On the way to the final, the Germans downed New Zealand’s Julia Tilley and Alice Bain 21-16, 21-15 while the Japanese knocked out the tournament’s second-seeded Russians, Ksenia Dabizha and Daria Mastikovam 21-13, 17-21,17-15.
One week after claiming gold at the Langkawi one-star FIVB World Tour event in Malaysia, Dabizha and Mastikova however took the bronze with a 21-19, 21-8 win over Tilley and Bain.
The Germans had come in through the qualification tournament, before winning both their pool play matches and clinching a deciding 21-19, 21-17 win in the quarter-finals over Israel’s Sofia Starikov and Noy Chorin.