Perusic, Gottardi steal the show at our inaugural 2023 Beach Pro Tour Player Awards

The 2023 Beach Pro Tour season was a long and winding and wonderful and wacky one. New hierarchies were established — hello, Ana Patricia and Duda — and old ones broken down, or at least put into question. Who, for example, is the best men’s team in the world? Is it still Norway, they of eight medals in nine events, or is it the World Champion Czech Republic…or the Beach Pro Tour Finals claiming Swedes, with their Tour leading four gold medals?

For the first time since 2018, we genuinely don’t know.

Young talent burst onto the scene, not least of all Miles Partain, the 21-year-old Jedi returning the force to USA Volleyball. Three medals did he and Andy Benesh win, all at Elite16 tournaments, including a gold in Gstaad. Combined with the six medals won by David Ahman and another two from Italian sensation Valentina Gottardi, 11 medals were won by 21-year-olds.

The old guard, too, held up just fine. The first tournament of the season, in La Paz? Won by 41-year-old Pablo Herrera, whose first win came in 2004. When Partain was 3.

Comebacks, too, were made. Three-time Olympian Chen Xue of China thought she might have to retire in the wake of the Tokyo Olympic Games. After a successful surgery and a reinvigoration, she returned to the Beach Pro Tour at the Itapema Challenge, winning gold in her first event back with her old but new partner, Xinyi Xia.

Dutch defender Yorick de Groot, too, made an impressive comeback. He was never in danger of retiring, but a hernia kept him out of much of the 2022 season. How’d he do in his return with Stefan Boermans? A bronze medal in La Paz.

Comebacks were made on the court as well. Twice, teams found themselves down 8-14 in the third set. Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles marched all the way back in the Montreal Elite16 quarterfinals against Duda and Ana Patricia, stunning the world No. 1 on their way to a silver medal. Austrians Moritz Pristauz and Robin Seidl, too, stared down the barrel of an 8-14 deficit in the Goa Challenge finals. No problem: They would win 17-15, claiming their first of two gold medals on the season.

Indeed, it has been as unpredictable year as one could hope.

One more than deserving of post-season awards, which were halted in 2020 on the FIVB and never revived until now.

The process for these awards was a week-long nomination process, where athletes in the International Beach Volleyball Players Association could nominate players for each category. The top four most-nominated players were then voted on in a several-week voting period. Nearly 100 of the top players on the Beach Pro Tour nominated and subsequently voted for the following results.

Men’s 2023 Beach Pro Tour Players Awards

MVP: Ondrej Perusic

Honorable mention: David Ahman, Anders Mol, Miles Partain

A hallmark of any athlete named the Most Valuable in their respective sport is often their ability to be nominated across a wide variety of categories. No player fits that mold more than Ondrej Perusic. The Czech Republic defender was nominated for Most Valuable, Best Defender, Best Offensive Player, Best Server, and, because he’s also one of the best humans on the beach, was a finalist for the Sportsmanship Award. Rich Lambourne called it “Jordanesc” when he was informed of the breadth of Perusic’s nominations.

They make sense. All of them. Perusic makes the difficult look easy and the usual plays look mundane. Not only was he one of the most effective defensive players in the world, but his ability to transition out of a dig – a remarkably high percentage of which were right into the awaiting hands of David Schweiner – made him one of the most dangerous on offense as well. No player, as determined by his peers, was better in 2023 than Ondrej Perusic.

Ondrej Perusic digs a ball at the Ostrava Elite16/Volleyball World photo

BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER: Ondrej Perusic

Honorable mention: David Ahman, Yorick de Groot, Ahmed Tijan

The way Ondrej Perusic plays defense reminds one of the manner in which Tim Duncan played basketball, Ichiro Suzuki baseball, Sergio Garcia golf: It looked easy. Simple. It isn’t, of course, easy to dig the heat of Anders Mol, or solve the vexing offense of Sweden, or chase down the shots of an Adrian Carambula. Yet Perusic makes it look ho-hum, consistently finding himself in the right position at the right time, a melding of brain and body that is unique almost exclusively to him – a melding that had him named the Best Defensive Player of 2023.

Ondrej Perusic digs a ball at the Ostrava Elite16/Volleyball World photo

BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYER: Anders Mol

Honorable mention: David Ahman, Ondrej Perusic, Robert Meeuwsen

This category was the closest of any, decided by a single vote between Anders Mol and Sweden’s David Ahman. Had the FIVB or Volleyball World continued the awards after the 2019 season, it’s possible Mol would have won in 2020, 2021, 2022 and again in 2023. He’s that good. In that span of six seasons, teams have thrown the proverbial kitchen sink at the Norwegian blocker. Seeing as he is yet again voted the Best Offensive Player, a solution has yet to be found. Anders Mol was, is, and likely will be again, the Best Offensive Player.

Anders Mol swings past Cherif Samba/Volleyball World photo

BEST BLOCKER: Anders Mol

Honorable mention: David Schweiner, Andre Loyola, Andy Benesh

When Anders Mol retires, this award will be named after him. There is no doubt that had the awards been sustained throughout the 2020-2022 seasons, he’d have been the overwhelming winner, as he was again in 2023. The fact is that nobody in the world has ever blocked like Mol, and neither should anybody even bother trying. What he’s able to do cannot be taught, replicated, or even attempted to any successful degree. He stands alone as the greatest blocker of this generation, and, if his trajectory stays the course, will soon stand alone as the greatest blocker of all time.

For now, he is simply the 2023 Best Blocker, the third year in which he has taken home that honor.

Anders Mol blocks Ahmed Tijan/Volleyball World photo

BEST SERVER: Evandro Goncalves

Honorable mention: Anders Mol, Adrian Gavira, Ondrej Perusic

Like Anders Mol for blocking, the Best Server award will one day become The Evandro Award. The Brazilian has now been named the Best Server in six different seasons, all in a row spanning from 2015-2023. His jump serve is a Wonder of the Beach Volleyball World, a bullet for which there is no protective vest, the most enviable weapon on the sand, one that can produce seven-point runs at times. As long as he is serving volleyballs, this is Evandro’s award to lose.

Evandro prepares to serve/Volleyball World photo

MOST IMPROVED: Miles Partain

Honorable mention: Sam Cottafava, Andy Benesh, Zach Schubert

Miles Partain put the world on notice when he made his debut on the Beach Pro Tour late in the 2022 season with Andy Benesh. Three events did he play, finishing fifth in his first, at a Challenge in the Maldives, winning his second at a Challenge in Dubai, and finishing top-10 again in Dubai despite playing on a hobbled ankle. Beginner’s luck? No such thing with Partain. The 21-year-old delivered in his first full-time season, winning three Elite16 medals – bronze in Ostrava, gold in Gstaad, silver in Montreal – and becoming the only USA team to beat Anders Mol and Christian Sorum multiple times. Partain and Benesh, who was second in voting for Most Improved, are now almost assured a place in the Paris Olympic Games. The only question with this team, and Partain in particular: How much better can they get with another year of experience?

Miles Partain celebrates winning the Dubai Challenger/Volleyball World photo

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Miles Partain

Honorable mention: Thomas Hodges, Teo Rotar, Joaquin Bello

This was the category of the largest margin of victory. With all due respect to Australian bomber Thomas Hodges, rising French blocker Teo Rotar, and jumping bean of an English blocker in Joaquin Bello, the world knew no player was in the same tier as Miles Partain when it came to rookies, and they responded as such. Partain, at just 21 years old, showed approximately zero signs of youth, oftentimes leading his 28-year-old partner, Andy Benesh, in times of trouble. As Ty Loomis once predicted during the 2020 AVP Champions Cup: Miles Partain would be the young Jedi returning the force to USA Volleyball.

He’s doing just that.

Miles Partain swings against Alex Ranghieri at the World Championships/Volleyball World

SPORTSMANSHIP: Ondrej Perusic

Honorable mention: Paolo Nicolai, Aleksandrs Samoilovs, Christian Sorum

Two incredible anecdotes to the genuine sportsmanship of Ondrej Perusic: He was the one who lobbied for this to be a category of award, because it’s an element of the game that’s important to him. When the votes were coming in, he sent me a message, requesting me to remove one vote from his tally in every category in which he was nominated, because someone who wasn’t a player got ahold of the form and voted for him.

Not that it would have made a difference. He won by a landslide, with only Italian great Paolo Nicolai coming relatively close.

The Best Defensive Player AND Most Valuable is also the best sportsman?

Ondrej Perusic may as well be the 2023 Man of the Year.

Ondrej Perusic at the Ostrava Elite16/Volleyball World photo

TEAM OF THE YEAR: Ondrej Perusic, David Schweiner, Czech Republic

Honorable mention: David Ahman, Jonatan Hellvig; Anders Mol, Christian Sorum; Andy Benesh, Miles Partain

The breakthrough many see came on the sport’s biggest stage, when Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner won the World Championships, stunning Anders Mol and Christian Sorum in the quarterfinals and fending off a spectacular comeback from Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig in the finals. In actuality, the breakthrough came six months prior, at the Uberlandia Elite16. It was in Brazil that the Czechs, so often the bridesmaid to the Norwegian gold medal coronation, upset Mol and Sorum, ending an eight-match losing streak and claiming the first of a team-best three gold medals.

There is now, for the first time since 2018, genuine debate over who lays claim to the best men’s team in the world. Is it the Czechs, the World Champs? Or Norway, with seven medals in nine events and the No. 1 ranking? Or the Swedes, with more gold medals this season than any other?

The votes say that in 2023, the answer to that unsolvable riddle is Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner.

Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner celebrate a semifinal win at the World Championships/Volleyball World photo

Women’s 2023 Beach Pro Tour Players Awards

MVP: Duda Lisboa

Honorable mention: Kelly Cheng, Kristen Nuss, Cinja Tillmann

Oftentimes in sports, there is a power struggle in determining who the Next Big Thing is when one who is arguably the greatest of all-time either retires or reduces playing. Such was not the case in beach volleyball. When Kerri Walsh Jennings’ schedule was reduced, to zero tournaments in the past two years, there was little debate amongst players as to who the new No. 1 was: Duda Lisboa.

A sensation as a teenager, the Brazilian was voted Most Outstanding in 2018 and 2019. Now 25, Duda is nearing the prime of her career, and she’s playing as such. Alongside Ana Patricia Silva, Duda won nine medals in 11 events, piling up an absurd amount of points in both the world and Olympic rankings. She is, at once, arguably the Best Offensive Player, Best Server, and Best Defensive Player.

After winning bronze at the Beach Pro Tour Finals, she was asked if she ever gets tired of playing beach volleyball. She smiled a shy and endearing smile, shook her head, and said “No, to me, beach volleyball is special.”

And the sport is made all the more special by having her in it.

Duda and Ana Patricia celebrate a fifth gold medal at the Joao Pessoa Elite16/Volleyball World photo

BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER: Kristen Nuss

Honorable mention: Duda, Cinja Tillmann, Sara Hughes

In Tlaxcala, Mexico, for the World Championships, anytime Kristen Nuss touched the ball, the crowd would serenade her with chants of “Chaparrita,” which, I was told by our producer, is the endearing way of calling someone a shorty in Spanish. It is not difficult to see why she won the adoration of the crowd (and any crowd, for that matter). Nuss led the tournament in digs and digs per match, just as she would do in Doha during a gold medal run at the Beach Pro Tour Finals. No player in the world digs as many balls as Nuss, and on top of that, her control makes nearly every dig settable, an in-system opportunity for a point in transition. It’s why Nuss and Taryn Kloth can weather slumpy offensive days – such as the Beach Pro Tour Finals – and still win the tournament on five straight sweeps.

The Chaparrita reigns supreme.

Kristen Nuss makes an incredible dig at the World Championships/Volleyball World photo

BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYER: Ana Patricia Silva

Honorable mention: Kelly Cheng, Duda, Valentina Gottardi

Ana Patricia Silva is one of those rare players who renders most every opposing defense helpless. How is one supposed to consistently stop a player who can put a dent in the earth with a sharp angle swing and, on the next play, drop a deft line roll just overtop the block and in front of the defender? Such is the full spectrum of Ana Patricia’s offense, one with seemingly no holes. Her peers recognized as much, naming her the 2023 Offensive Player of the Year.

Ana Patricia Silva celebrates at the Paris Elite16/Volleyball World photo

BEST BLOCKER: Brandie Wilkerson

Honorable mention: Ana Patricia, Kelly Cheng, Taryn Kloth

Like her male counterpart, Anders Mol, sometimes it seems as if Brandie Wilkerson has been dropped off on earth from another planet. The plays she makes with shocking regularity often verge into the realm of the unreal, sending commentators – myself included – into wonder: “Did she just do that?”

She can swat a short line as if it were Melissa Humana-Paredes setting her, roof a sharp angle swing in a manner that has the ball landing before either hitter or blocker, turn and make a play on a shot as mobile and graceful and coordinated as any defender. The real issue with a blocker such as Wilkerson is that there is no way of simulating that type of block; you must simply navigate it in real time, understanding that high lines must be higher, sharp swings sharper, crisp contacts crisper – or it’s coming back on your side of the court.

For all of those reasons, and dozens more, Brandie Wilkerson is your 2023 Blocker of the Year.

Brandie Wilkerson blocks against Kristen Nuss/Jim Wolf photo

BEST SERVER: Valentina Gottardi

Honorable mention: Duda, Taliqua Clancy, Anastasija Samoilova

It is surprisingly easy to pinpoint the exact day, time, and match in which Valentina Gottardi established herself is one of the best servers in the world. In the quarterfinals of the Tepic Elite16 – an event in which Gottardi and Marta Menegatti had to come out of the qualifier – the 21-year-old blocker aced Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson five times.

In the first set.

Her float serve is a fast, flat missile, a dancing devil that would earn her ace after ace and untold number of out of system passes throughout the course of the season – and that would earn her the 2023 Server of the Year.

Valentina Gottardi celebrates a point/Volleyball World photo

MOST IMPROVED: Valentina Gottardi

Honorable mention: Cija Tillmann, Louisa Lippmann, Aine Raupelyte

At just 20 years old, Valentina Gottardi burst onto the scene midway through the 2022 season, a player who had played mostly Futures and One Star tournaments. Then came World Champs, and the most unexpected run into the quarterfinals. She had an enormous arm, tremendous serve, and what appeared to be an unshakable confidence.

But was she for real? Was she a shooting star, blazing bright for a brief moment? Or was this play sustainable?

Any questions about Gottardi were answered and then answered again in 2023. The now-21-year-old and the veteran Menegatti finished the year ranked No. 10 in the world, with two Elite16 semifinals, in Tepic and Paris, and a pair of Challenge medals, gold in Saquarema and silver in Edmonton.

The only question remaining: How good can she be come 2024?

Valentina Gottardi hits around Sarah Pavan/Volleyball World photo

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Valentina Gottardi

Honorable mention: Julia Scoles, Louisa Lippmann, Dorina Klinger

It is a testament to just how sensational Valentina Gottardi’s rookie season was given the thick competition she had for Rookie of the Year. Julia Scoles was fantastic, accomplishing something even Gottardi couldn’t: Making an Elite16 semifinal. Louisa Lippmann was downright frightening at the net and the service line, asserting herself at will in certain matches, sometimes even full tournaments. And Dorina Klinger established herself, with her sister Ronja defending behind her, as a dark horse in nearly every tournament.

And it was Gottardi who came out on top.

Boding well for the Italian Federation as a whole is that Gottardi has all the requisite tools to build a strong foundation for the entire country: A talented blocker with a wicked serve who sets well and is already as terminal as anyone in the world offensively. What Duda is for Brazil is what Gottardi could well be for Italy.

Valentina Gottardi blocks a ball at the Tepic Elite16/Volleyball World photo

SPORTSMANSHIP: Melissa Humana-Paredes

Honorable mention: Agatha, Laura Ludwig, Taryn Kloth

Is there a player on the whole of the Beach Pro Tour — for that matter, the whole world — with a more contagious joy than Melissa Humana-Paredes? The Canadian defender brims with it, often spilling over into her play on the court and, as recognized by her peers, her character off it. Always ready with a smile, always ready with the kindest demeanor, always a bright light in a sport that sometimes needs one, Melissa Humana-Paredes is the Sportswoman of the Year.

Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson celebrate at the Montreal Elite16/Volleyball World photo

TEAM OF THE YEAR: Ana Patricia, Duda

Honorable mention: Kelly Cheng, Sara Hughes; Kristen Nuss, Taryn Kloth

This was the only category in which only three teams or individuals were nominated. That’s how far ahead these three were. And Ana Patricia and Duda established a gap nearly the equivalent over Cheng and Hughes and Nuss and Kloth, even with the two biggest tournaments – World Champs, Beach Pro Tour Finals – going to the latter two teams. The Brazilians won medals in nine of 11 events, 10 of 12 when including a gold at the PanAmerican Games. Their 87 percent winning percentage was a full 12 over Nuss and Kloth and 18 above Cheng and Hughes. The only reason they weren’t the unanimous victors was because they didn’t win the year’s major tournaments, settling for a ho-hum silver at World Champs and bronze at the Beach Pro Tour Finals.

If settling for anything but gold produces a “What happened?” response, that’s an indicator of an elite team.

In this case, that’s an indicator of the 2023 Team of the Year.

Duda and Ana Patricia celebrate with the Brazil fans/Volleyball World photo

EVENT OF THE YEAR: World Championships

Honorable mention: Ostrava Elite16, Royal King and Queen of the Court Championships, Chiang Mai Challenge

If there’s one thing we all could have learned from this 2023 season, it’s this: Mexico does beach volleyball right. From the opening Challenge event in La Paz – stunning, packed, brimming with energy – to the World Championships in Tlaxcala, the country has gotten the near-unanimous approval from the players. Fans, as was the case for the World Championships, show up in the tens of thousands, and they don’t just show up. They dance. They sing. They clobber cervezas and ask for more, pronto por favor. They get loud for the home team, making forgettable blowouts awfully memorable. They adopt new favorites, such as Kristen Nuss, who was bestowed the nickname “chaparrita,” or Taryn Kloth, who somehow left Mexico with the hilarious new moniker, “Barbie girl.” Tlaxcala delivered an atmosphere befitting a major tournament, where the players navigated half-hour long mixed zone autograph and interview sessions, where the media, for once, swarmed post-match. The only downside was a rash of food poisoning that impacted nearly 75 percent of the field, and that is not an insignificant downside. But telling of how special the event was is that, even with so many players struggling with food poisoning, 60 percent of them still voted for the World Championships as the 2023 Event of the Year.

The post Perusic, Gottardi steal the show at our inaugural 2023 Beach Pro Tour Player Awards appeared first on Volleyballmag.com.

​Read More Volleyballmag.com Beach, Olympics Beach, Pro Beach, VBM Interviews