Spanish brothers Javier Huerta & Alejandro Huerta won their first-ever international gold by topping the podium at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures men’s event in Madrid on Sunday to the delight of the home fans at the Elsa Baquerizo court in the Puerta de Hierro Sports Park. It was the first tournament win for either of the two siblings, but it was also only their second world-level medal as a team, after they took bronze at the Bangkok 1-star on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour back in 2018.
Paul Henning & Sven Winter of Germany took the Madrid silver, while the bronze medals went to Chinese qualifiers Li Jie & Wang Yanwei.
In Sunday’s final, 26-year-old Javier and 25-year-old Alejandro came back from a set down against Henning & Winter to claim a 2-1 (17-21, 21-16, 15-9) victory. In the semifinals on the previous day, the top-seeded Spanish pair mastered a 2-0 (21-19, 21-14) shutout of Li & Wang.
Huerta & Huerta actually started the tournament with a straight-set win against the same Chinese opponents, but then suffered their only defeat of the tournament, 2-0 (21-18, 21-18) at the hands of German qualifiers Maximilian Just & Lui Wust in the Pool A final. As pool runners-up, the Spaniards took the long road to the final, but did not drop a single set along the way, adding a 2-0 (21-15, 21-16) eighthfinal win over compatriots Alvaro Viera & Antonio Saucedo and a 2-0 (21-13, 23-21) quarterfinal win over Hungary’s Artur Hajos & Bence Attila Streli to their tournament record.
