Brazil's men and Argentina's women topped the podium in Uruguay

Montevideo, Uruguay, February 17, 2014 – There was golden joy for Argentina’s Georgina Klug and Ana Gallay and Brazil’s Alvaro Filho and Thiago Santos at the Uruguayan leg of the South American Beach Volleyball Tour.

The Argentine’s defeated Brazilian pair Fernanda Berti and Elize Maia 2-0 (30-28, 21-17) in an absorbing final. Earlier in the final day they had beaten another Brazilian pair, Carolina Horta and Claudirene Bento 2-1 (17-21, 23-21, 15-12), while Elize and Maia ended the hopes of local favourites Fabiana Gomez and Lucia Gigou 2-0 (21-18, 21-17). 

“We want to win all the stops,” Gallay said. “We are now returning to our best play because we haven’t played since the FIVB World Tour event Thailand in October.”  

In the men's final, Alvaro Filho and Thiago Santos started strongly against Chilean cousins Esteban and Marco Grimalt and held off their comeback in the second to comfortably close out the match with a 2-0 victory (21-14, 21-16). 

Santos and Alvaro Filho fought back from losing the opening set to beat Argentine’s leading men’s team Julian Azzad and Ian Mehamed 2-1 (24-26, 21-19 and 15-8). The Grimalt cousins then ensured that it wouldn’t be an all-Brazilian final by beating Bruno Moreira and Lima Hevaldo 2-0 (21-18, 21-18). 

“We are playing together for the first time this season and I think we are developing well as a pair,” Santos said. “We won together in Peru but then went to the World Cup. We started the final in confident mood, but we knew that the Grimalt cousin’s level is very high.”

Brazilian teams won both bronze medal matches;  Claudinere Bento and Carolina Horta beat Gomez and Gigou 2-1 (20-22, 21-11, 15-10) and Hevaldo Moreira and Bruno Lima beat Azzad and Mehamed 2-1 (15-21, 21-18, 15-8).