Vitor and Renato win Brazilian Tour gold ahead of Doha Challenge

Seeded fourth in this week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Challenge tournament in Doha, Qatar, Vitor Felipe and Renato Lima will enter the event in good form after they won the third Top 8 stop on the Brazilian national tour on Sunday in the country’s capital Brasilia.

The semifinalists of the international season opener, the Tlaxcala Challenge in March, Vitor and Renato were the best among the eight teams that competed in last weekend’s tournament in Brasilia and claimed the title with their straight-set (21-17, 21-18) gold medal match victory over Arthur Mariano and Adrielson dos Santos.

“Our more recent results reflect all the work we’ve been doing with our coaching staff well,” Renato commented. “We have played very frequently during the last few weeks and our match rhythm has been a weapon for us during tournaments. This event was difficult because we lost two of our first three matches, but we were ready to turn things around and are already looking forward to the next events.”

The winners of the Itapema Challenge earlier this month, Andre Loyola and George Wanderley took third place on the podium after they overcame Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes and Vinicius Freitas 2-0 (21-14, 21-10) in the bronze medal match.

The women’s tournament in Brasilia set the stage for the first victory of Tokyo Olympians Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Ana Patricia Ramos as partners. The two players, who finished fifth at the Rosarito Elite16 - the only international tournament they have played so far - downed Itapema bronze medallists Andressa Cavalcanti and Vitoria Rodrigues in two sets (21-15, 21-14) to top the podium in the Brazilian capital.

“This start has been a challenge for us,” Ana Patricia said. “We were both in long partnerships before joining forces, and in a lot of ways, we have to deconstruct some aspects of our games so we can build our identity as a team. But we truly believe in our team and it’s great to see we’re making progress. We’ll start now a period in which we’ll compete a lot and we’re hoping our team only gets better moving forward.”

Taiana Lima and Hegeile ‘Hege’ Santos upset Olympians Talita Antunes and Rebecca Cavalcanti, who took bronze in Rosarito, to finish third in Brasilia. They won the bronze medal match in the tie-breaker (18-21, 21-12, 16-14).

The three Brazilian women's teams that will compete in Doha were also in action in Brasilia with Carol Salgado/Barbara Seixas finishing fifth, Elize Maia/Thamela Coradello ranking seventh and Taina Bigi/Victoria Lopes taking silver in the second-tier Open tournament that ended on Saturday. Canadians Brandie Wilkerson and Sophie Bukovec, who will also make the trip to Doha, played in the Open event as well and finished fifth.

The fourth Brazilian Tour Top 8 event of the season will take place in Vila Velha from June 22-26.