Year in Review: World title gives Duda and Ana Patricia a dream first season together

Several new women’s beach volleyball teams were formed following the conclusion of last year’s Tokyo Olympics. Not many, however, were surrounded by as much hype as Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Ana Patricia Ramos. And the Brazilians didn’t take long to live up to expectations, winning the most important tournament in their first season as partners, the 2022 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship.

Aged 24 and 25 respectively, Duda and Ana Patricia were considered the two most promising Brazilian players of their generation, so it just felt natural when they announced they would be joining forces in 2022 after competing with different partners in Tokyo – Duda finished ninth with Agatha Bednarczuk while Ana Patricia claimed fifth with Rebecca Cavalcanti.

· Watch on-demand replays of Beach Volleyball World Championship matches on Volleyball TV.

Their union was actually a reunion as they had been partners at the 2014 Youth Olympics and the 2016 and 2017 U21 World Championships, winning gold on all three occasions.

“I’m so happy that I’m out of words to describe my feelings,” Duda said. “It’s really a dream come true. I’m just so happy with the result of our work. We were able to put everything we trained to work, and every match was better than the previous one. It was different at the Youth Olympics. We were both very young, didn’t have much of an idea of how big that was, and we were just having fun. It’s been very special being together again now, after so many years. We keep looking back and talking about some moments we experienced together in the past and even though we’re in a different moment in our lives now, we continue to have a lot of fun on the court. We love playing together.”

Held in Rome, the World Championship was just the fourth international tournament after their reunion and marked their first victory at the world level as partners. It also helped them leave their Olympic frustrations in the past and start a new moment in their careers with a positive result.

“I decided to have this ‘Believe’ tattoo on my arm after the Olympics last year because it was a difficult moment for me,” Ana Patricia said. “I wanted to have something that would always remind me that we need to believe in ourselves before anyone else does. Today, it couldn’t make any more sense.”

The fifth different Brazilian women’s team to claim the world title, Duda and Ana Patricia topped Pool B with straight-set victories over China’s Fan Wang/Xinyi Xia and the Czech Republic’s Barbora Hermannova/Martina Williams and a 2-1 triumph against Austria’s Katharina Schutzenhofer/Lena Plesiutschnig, who were the only team to take a set from them at the Foro Italico.

Beach Volleyball World Championships Rome 2022: All results

They started the elimination rounds with a solid win over Japan’s Miki Ishii/Sayaka Mizoe. The next two matches were real tests, but they eliminated fellow Brazilians Carolina Salgado and Barbara Seixas in the Round of 16 and defending champions Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes of Canada in the quarterfinals.

Their semifinal opponents were the Tokyo Olympic bronze medallists, Switzerland’s Joana Heidrich and Anouk Verge-Depre, who also went down in two sets. In the gold medal match, the Brazilians overcame Canadians Brandie Wilkerson and Sophie Bukovec to secure the title.

The Canadians, by the way, caused the biggest surprise of the tournament. In just their first year as partners, the two players advanced all the way to the gold medal match with a three-set victory over Germans Svenja Muller and Cinja Tillmann, who took bronze in Rome.

The Germans also had a great campaign at the Foro Italico, winning Pool I and eliminating Tokyo Olympic silver medallists Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho of Australia in the quarterfinals before they stepped on the podium.

Quick links:
Beach Volleyball World Championships Rome 2022
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