Lars Fluggen and Markus Bockermann finished the year just like they had started it – with a victory. The pair won the Qatar Open, a part of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar, shocking top seeds Philip Dalhausser and Nicholas Lucena on Friday.
At the Qatar Beach Volleyball Academy’s showpiece court in Al Gharafa Club, Fluggen and Bockermann turned the final around with a clinical finish to post a 21-18 16-21 15-13 triumph over the American rivals and win the second title of the season after Fuzhou Open crown.
Qatar Volleyball Association President Khalid Ali al Mawlawi presided over the closing ceremony and presented the prizes to the winners. Fluggen and Bockermann earned $11,000, while Dalhausser and Lucena took home $8,000.
John Hyden and Tri Bourne, another US pair, downed French challengers Youssef Krou and Edouard Rowlandson 21-15, 20-22, 15-12 in a 50-minute third-place match to pocket $6,000.
After the Germans drew the first blood and Dalhausser leading the charge in the second to tie the match, Fluggen and Bockermann were deadlocked with the opponents at 13-13 in the roller-coster tie-break set. They denied 205-cm tall Dalhausser, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games champion, finishing touches by serving precisely to Lucena and then they were able to pull off the last two crucial points and the match.
This was the third meeting between the two pairs this year. The US duo had won the Xiamen Open final in September and the World Tour Finals semi-final in Fort Lauderdale, the USA, on the way to getting the second place earlier this month.
With this revenge victory, Fluggen and Bockermann kept the German flag flaying high in Doha after Tim Holler and Jonas Schroder had bagged the title last year. This was the fourth final for the winners this season.
A delighted Fluggen said after the final, “It’s awesome to have a win against Dalhausser and Lucena. We are the deserving champions as we did not lose any match in the tournament.
“We put a lot of energy in our service in the third set. I think it was the key to our victory. It’s always a little bit about the luck and it was a lot of fun out here.
I’m proud of having won two titles in the season. We’d not expected it really,” added Fluggen.
Bockermann, “This is was a tough final. We had lost two matches to the Americans before. It was really hard and there was a big fight for the title. It’s awesome.
“I mean if you believe (in beating anybody), you can do it,” Bockermann added.
But today wasn’t the day of Dalhausser and Lucena. After having survived four successive three-setters in the tournament since winning the last group match 2-1, the Americans finally succumbed to the pressure. But the bright note of their partnership has been that they have played six finals out in seven events on the World and Grand Slam Tours since they reunited in August this year.
“We struggled in the whole tournament but we were finding ways to win. Yeah, we found ourselves (struggling) in third set again today.
We played tough and quality volleyball to come through. This one we however couldn’t squeak out.
“We’ve put ourselves in great spot to qualify for the Olympic Games. This is our sixth tournament in the qualifying race. The tour has not finished yet as a couple of tournaments are to be played next year. This (our superb run) has given us great advantage over others if any of us gets injured,” added Dalhausser.
For Bourne and Hyden, this was the second medal on the World Grand Slam and Open Tours. In June last year, they won the Berlin Grand Slam. Bourne was excited with the third place and said “We’re very pleased with the third-place finish. Both of them are very good athletes. We knew that if we lead, they’re going to battle so we kept fighting to the end.
“We’ve been in the middle of the pack. We’d been wanting to finish on the podium all the year. We always wanted to finish strong and that was what we managed to achieve,” Bourne added.
Hyden said, “Both were making a lot of plays in the match. Fortunately towards the end, we also started to make a couple of plays and that was the whole difference in the match. We just had to keep coming back and we pulled out a couple of strings…three or four in a row. We definitely played a lot better in the last game than before.”
النتائج

First place match
Lars Flüggen & Markus Böckermann GER [5] beat Nicholas Lucena & Philip Dalhausser USA [1] 2-1 (21-18, 16-21, 15-13) 50 mts
Third place match
John Hyden & Tri Bourne USA [3] beat Youssef Krou & Edouard Rowlandson FRA [6] 2-1 (21-15, 20-22, 15-12) 50 mts
Semi-finals
Krou/Rowlandson FRA [6] lost to Lucena/Dalhausser USA [1] 1-2 (21-15, 16-21, 7-15) 44 mts
Flüggen/Böckermann GER [5] beat Hyden/Bourne USA [3] 2-1 (21-14, 16-21, 15-12) 51 mts