A-Grand Slam Beach Volleyball Women’s Final
Lo and Behold! The duo has pulled it off once again. The superstars of beach volleyball, Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca of Brazil left everyone behind in the A-1 Grand Slam Women’s Beach Volleyball Championship in Klagenfurt, Austria. They defended the title and earned the gold medal for Brazil once again to prove that they were the best in the business.
The final combat of A-1 Grand Slam women’s tournament took place on July 31, 2010, which brought smiles and joy on the faces of their fans. The Brazilian pair kept the fans on their toes with their special volleyball skills for the last 6 days. The duo put their body, mind and soul in the game and finally secured the title for another year.
The most interesting feature of this match was the involvement of two Brazilian teams on both sides of the court. It was the 44th all-Brazilian gold medal final in the 19-year history of the women’s SWATCH FIVB World Cup. Juliana and Larissa started the game with great consistency, avoided mistakes, and brought complete perfection into their game. The great physical play of the top-seeded players made them pull off the two sets victory in just 30 minutes by posting scores of 21-13 and 21-19 on the points’ scale. The runner-up Brazilian pair of Vivian Cunha and Taiana Lima struggled to gain confidence in the game as they couldn’t stand the electrifying shots produced by Juliana and Larissa.
The A-1 Grand Slam tournament was sponsored by the one of the top finance groups of Austria, the Volksbank which had set a whopping prize money of U.S. $600,000 for both women’s and men’s tournaments. In the women’s tournament, Juliana and Larissa participated in the tournament for the 51st time in 80 FIVB starts since 2004 as they claimed their 34th SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal once again. They succeeded in getting their hands on their part of the prize money which was set at U.S. $300,000.
They also shared U.S. $43,500 for winning the first place. It was the fourth time that they were hitting centre court at Menitzstrand at Lake Worthsee since 2004 which has always brought them good luck. They achieved the second position in 2006 and 2007, whereas they finished on the third place in the 2004, 2005, and 2008 championships. They won the title in 2009 and they have repeated the same tradition this season.
Juliana and Larissa have actually entered in a race with American players Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, who have won the highest number of Klagenfurt gold medals in the history of SWATCH FIVB Beach Volleyball. Although the American pair was a two-time Olympic winner and three-time world champion, they won four gold medals at Klagenfurt in 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2007.
However, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh are no longer together in the game. In recent years, Walsh has focused on her family matters as she gave birth to her second child in May last year. On the other hand, Misty May-Treanor is currently paired with Nicole Branagh but she couldn’t achieve the same level of performance. May-Treanor and Branagh were placed at the ninth position in this season. So they did not pose as a great threat which gives Juliana and Larissa a competitive edge to quickly move to the target. They just need one more SWATCH FIVB World Tour win to tie the record set by May-Treanor and Walsh.
Juliana and Larissa were on fire with their brilliant performances in previous Grand Slam tournaments and this particular win at the A-1 Grand Slam Tournament added more value to their status in the game. They pulled their victory string to 22-straight wins as they have been successful in the last three SWATCH FIVB World Tours.
Juliana and Larissa are the top-guns of women’s beach volleyball and the game has also awarded them in every way. They have become the fame-monsters and the richest players of the game. Larissa is now at U.S. $1,011,185 while Juliana is touching the 1 million dollar mark with U.S. $999,175.
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