Makhno twins win Ios to make it two in a row

Vandecaveye brothers claim their first Beach Pro Tour gold

Siblings dominated the Ios Futures event in Greece on Sunday. Ukrainian twin sisters Inna and Iryna Makhno won the women`s gold, marking their second consecutive victory on the Beach Pro Tour. Greece`s Elisavet Triantafillidi and Dimitra Manavi pleased the local fans with silver, while France`s Saofe Duval and Marilu Pally took bronze. On the men`s side, Belgian brothers Gilles and Louis Vandecaveye secured their first ever Beach Pro Tour gold medal. Spain`s Daniel Moreno and Roberto Sanfelix finished with silver, and Austria`s Robin Seidl and Alexander Huber completed the men`s podium.

The Makhno sisters achieved their second Beach Pro Tour gold at the Krakow Futures just under three years after their first, and followed it up with their third win the following week in Ios. Seeded third, the Ukrainian pair lost their pool final to Duval and Pally, forcing them through the longer route to the semifinals. There they met the French duo again and got their revenge with a decisive 2-0 (21-17, 21-13) victory. The final against home favourites Triantafillidi and Manavi was a thrilling battle, ending with the Makhno twins celebrating a narrow 2-1 (21-17, 19-21, 18-16) win.

The fourth-seeded Greek team, Triantafillidi and Manavi, leveraged their home advantage to reach their first Beach Pro Tour final. Their semifinal match against fifth-seeded Sakura Ito and Mayu Sawame of Japan was a close contest, resulting in a 2-0 (22-20, 21-19) win that guaranteed their second Tour podium finish.

To earn their first ever podium finish as a team, the sixth-seeded French pair Duval and Pally recovered from their semifinal loss to sweep the bronze medal match against Ito and Sawame 2-0 (21-16, 21-17).

Gilles and Louis Vandecaveye, who had previously won three Beach Pro Tour medals, finally reached the top of the podium for the first time in Ios. The sixth-seeded Belgian brothers were undefeated throughout the men`s tournament, winning all five of their matches. They secured their place in the final with a dominant 2-0 (21-17, 21-7) win over 11th-seeded Germans Niklas Held and Hennes Jorge Nissen in the semifinal, and clinched the title with a hard-fought 2-0 (21-16, 23-21) victory against Moreno and Sanfelix.

The seventh-seeded Spanish pair, Moreno and Sanfelix, took home silver, their first Beach Pro Tour medal. They reached the final by causing a 2-1 (21-11, 18-21, 15-12) upset against the experienced Rio 2016 Olympians Seidl and Huber in the semifinals.

The seasoned Austrian team, Seidl and Huber, seeded fifth, added another medal to their collection since reuniting this season. Following their silver in Songkhla Futures and bronze in Battipaglia Futures, they secured the Ios bronze by defeating Held and Nissen convincingly 2-0 (21-16, 21-15) in the third-place play-off.

The Ios Futures tournament featured 22 men`s teams and 21 women`s teams from 22 different countries. The next Futures event on the schedule is a women`s competition in Geneva, Switzerland, from June 26 to 29.