FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship bronze medallists Andre Loyola and George Wanderley will try to stop fellow Brazilians and qualifiers Pedro Solberg and Arthur Lanci in the gold medal match of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event held in Uberlandia, Brazil, on Sunday.

The two teams won their semifinal matches at Praia Clube on Saturday and will play for the title of the eighth Elite16 event in the Beach Pro Tour's inaugural season at 14:00 local time (17:00 GMT). Brazil’s Vitor Felipe/Renato Lima and Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum will meet in the bronze medal match at 11:30 local time (14:30 GMT).

· Watch all matches at the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Uberlandia live on Volleyball TV.

Pedro, 36, and Arthur, 26, have been the sensations of the tournament in Uberlandia as the two started the event in the qualifier and advanced all the way to the gold medal match to play in their first international final as partners.

On Saturday, the Brazilians started the day with a two-set (21-19, 21-19) victory over Norwegians Hendrik Mol and Mathias Berntsen in the quarterfinals and survived a dramatic semifinal battle with FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship silver medallists Vitor and Renato, winning in three sets (25-27, 21-19, 17-15).

“It’s great to see our hard work paying off,” Arthur commented. “I moved to Rio in order to be able to practise with Pedro every day and our chemistry got incredibly better. Every time we go on the court, we just want to do our job well. And that will be the same in the final, we’re sure it’s going to be a great match.”

For Pedro, a 17-year international beach volleyball veteran, the tournament in Uberlandia marks his return to a gold medal match for the first time since 2017, when he won an FIVB World Tour event in Porec with Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes. A few weeks ago, Arthur and Pedro got their first podium appearance as partners with a third-place finish in Dubai.

“We’ve been focusing a lot on our performance and trying to look away from the scoreboard and that’s been working,” he said. “The focus is always on winning the next point and I think that approach changed my way of seeing things in a certain way. That has helped us to come back in several matches and it’s what took us to the final. We had difficult moments at the start of the season and it’s great to get to the end of the year with such great results.”

Uberlandia Elite16 - Match Schedule and Results

Andre and George, who won the last two international events they played in Brazil – a World Tour event in November 2021 and April’s Itapema Challenge – will be looking for their second title in the 2022 season.

The Brazilians eliminated Austrians Robin Seidl and Philipp Waller in the two-set (21-16, 21-16) quarterfinal early in the day, and got revenge for their World Championship semifinal loss against Mol and Sørum later, topping the reigning Olympic and world champions in a three-set (20-22, 21-19, 15-13) semifinal duel.

“To be able to beat the Norwegians means a lot for us,” Andre commented. “We had lost three consecutive matches against them this season, including in the semifinal of the World Championship, and that was a tough one. We could have even won 2-0, but I made some mistakes in set one. It was a big win, for sure, but we want to win gold more than anything and we’ll go for it tomorrow.”

The comeback win also excited George, who's already looking forward to another tough battle against his former partner Pedro and his good friend Arthur in the final at Praia Clube.

“Today was our day,” George reflected. “There were some plays that could have gone their way, but we were lucky and ended up winning the point. I’m really good friends with Arthur and am very happy to see him in the final of an Elite16 event. Tomorrow it's going to be fun, but we'll fight with everything that we have to take the title.”

Quick links:
Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Uberlandia Elite16
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