Russian world champs make the double

Playing gold medal matches against Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler has meant success for Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov in 2019. The Russians have downed the Germans all three times the teams clashed for a title with the last triumph happening at this weekend’s World Tour Finals, when the reigning world champions posted a 21-16, 21-16 victory to come out on top in Rome.

The last match of the 2018-2019 World Tour season was a rematch of the World Championships final, in July, when the Russians secured the title in front of over 10,000 Germans fans at the Red Bull Beach Arena at the Rothenbaum Stadium. They also prevailed when the teams met at the gold medal match in the Hague, in January.

“We has played them in two finals before and we knew they were a really good team,” Stoyanovskiy commented. “They are a great side out team and they served really well in this tournament. We played really well overall but the key for us was to keep our side out solid.”

With the victory in Rome, the Russians become the third team to make the double by winning the World Championships and the World Tour Finals in the same season joining Brazilians Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt, in 2015, and Germans Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst, in 2017.

Next year, the Europeans will try to join the Brazilians and the Germans in another selective group - the one that includes teams that won both tournaments and the Olympic Games.

“When we first got together last year, we couldn’t imagine we would win the two most important tournaments of the season,” the blocker added. I’m really happy and it’s great to see that we played at our best in the most important moments.”

The World Championships podium was entirely repeated in the Italian capital as Norwegian stars Anders Mol and Christian Sørum secured the bronze medal with a 21-16, 21-15 win over Americans Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb and finished in the top-three for the ninth time in 12 tournaments in 2019.