ADELAIDE, Australia – There was a block, a pair of roars, and a visceral, startled reaction from Kyle Friend in the comms booth.
Tina Graudina had just slammed shut a swing from Taryn Brasher in the World Championships finals, turned to the massive crowd of flag-waving Latvians, and roared to her supporters. They promptly roared back at the 27-year-old blocker, and Friend, running color on the commentary, was quite literally taken aback in his chair.
“There’s a look in the eyes of Tina,” he said, “and Anastasija [Samoilova] as well. Just focused, controlled, such good composure.”
We hear this often in sports: The winning team just wanted it more or had that look in their eye and it will typically elicit eyerolls. It is usually nothing more than a lazy, cliched motif that means little but fills airtime or ink in pages.
This is the one case where I have seen it ring true.
Because, as Friend said, there was something different about Graudina and Samoilova not just in the finals, but all 10 days in Adelaide.
Already, this had been a career year, with finals appearances in Ostrava and Gstaad. Already, before pocketing the $60,000 in winnings from their World Championships gold medal, it was a career-high in prize money.
They took what they had been building upon with first-year coach Danny Rodriguez and doubled down, smashing every opponent in their path. The exclamation point was a 21-10, 21-16 drubbing of world No. 1 Thamela and Victoria in the semifinals that put the world on notice, if it hadn’t been already.
The issue, or so it seemed prior to Sunday’s nightcap gold medal match, was that they’d meet a team in Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher, to whom they’d lost five straight and hadn’t so much as taken a set since Gstaad of 2022. Their most recent matchup, the gold medal match in Gstaad, was not as close as the scores (21-19, 21-18) indicated, as Nuss and Brasher controlled every touch, gliding to a second straight golden cowbell.
That was then.
This was now.
Graudina and Samoilova continued adding wrinkles to their game, jump-sets and tempo sets and delayed routes and even a skyball or two. Their defensive calls were 4D chess, with Samoilova making digs by the dozen without so much as diving. The number of high lines she simply walked into throughout the World Championships was astonishing, and her transition rate remained deadly, a high-efficiency machine dismantling every opponent in their path.
Still: It was fair to wonder how they’d fare in the finals, a setting in which they’d struggled, winning only two of five on the Beach Pro Tour. Their last major win came at the 2022 European Championships.
But that look, that steely, fiery focus they’d maintained all week, was sustained in the most important match of their careers. Nuss and Brasher made it interesting, claiming the second set off Latvia, 21-15, the first Graudina and Samoilova dropped all week, but it was no matter. They charged – no, roared – out again in the third, taking a 6-4 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
Their gold medal marks the first World Championship medal in Latvian beach volleyball history. The only other team from their country to make a semifinal was Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins in 2011 in Rome. In the past, Graudina has jokingly – maybe – referred to Plavins, Smedins, and Aleksandrs Samoilovs (the brother-in-law of Anastasija) as the Holy Trinity of Latvian beach volleyball.
Graudina and Samoilova are the matriarchs of the women’s federation, accomplishing what no Latvian team had before, no doubt inspiring a quickly deepening pool of talent that will look to them as Kristians Fokerots and his peers look to the trinity.
“They were the best team all tournament long,” Friend said. “That’s what’s so great about this for them is being rewarded for being the best team.”
TKN join rarified air in winning second straight World Champs medal
It wasn’t the gold they so wanted, but in winning a silver medal, Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher continued to be the glitch in the beach volleyball system, putting themselves yet again in rarified air. In winning back-to-back World Championships medals, they accomplished something that hasn’t been done since 2005-2007, when Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings won back-to-back (to-back) golds, stretching back to 2003 in Rio de Janeiro.
Like Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova, Nuss and Brasher put together a squeaky clean resume through the finals, one that included only two sets dropped. Their quarterfinal win over Lexy Denaburg and Julia Scoles included one of the most remarkable accomplishments I’ve ever seen in beach volleyball, finishing the match without a single error. No hitting errors. No serving errors. Nothing. It speaks to the level of play from Scoles and Donlin that they hung in there as well as they did, drawing to 22-20, 21-18.
It’s hard to beat a team that won’t beat themselves, and Nuss and Brasher never did.
In their only loss, their opponents, Graudina and Samoilova, played spectacular. On the whole, this was perhaps Brasher’s finest tournament. She blocked well, finishing No. 2 for the tournament, just one behind Carol Salgado, and was as aggressive on-two as she ever has been. Her options were the central reason they took out world No. 2 Carol and Rebecca Cavalcanti in the semifinals, and her transition setting put Nuss exactly where she needed it in order to rack up as many transition kills as she did.
It is indicative of how high level Nuss and Brasher were this year that a silver might feel, to them, like a disappointment, a feeling really only known to May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings.
That is very much the company they’re in.
Carol Salgado: Mother of Dragons/Volleyball World photo
Carol Salgado: Mother of Dragons
In her ninth World Championships and 230th event of her career – not to mention hundreds more national tour events in Brazil – Carol Salgado won her first World Championship medal.
The longevity of the 38-year-old is as extraordinary as I’ve seen in any sport, and on the comms I referred to her as the Iron Woman. A Brazilian friend of mine said that she is indeed an Iron Woman, but she goes by a different name in Brazil: Mother of Dragons.
A fittingly badass nickname for one of beach volleyball’s most badass women.
It is one thing to play at a high level in one’s later years as an athlete. It is entirely another to do what Carol is doing.
She isn’t just playing decent beach volleyball to extend her record of most events played by anyone in the sport’s history. She’s playing the best beach volleyball of her career.
At 37, with Barbara Seixas, she made her first Olympics.
At 38, she won a second straight gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, topped a new career-high in prize money, and won her first World Championships medal in Adelaide, a bronze with Rebecca Cavalcanti.
We may never see another player like her.
The good news: She doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all.
Brandie Wilkerson roars after a block in the round of 16/Volleyball World photo
Mel, Brandie, and the Year of Fifths
In 2022, after a string of five fifth-place finishes in nine events, I dubbed Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher (then Kloth) the Queen of Fifth.
They quickly discarded that tiara, and haven’t finished fifth since July of 2023.
The crown has instead been picked up and donned by Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, who closed their 2025 season with a sixth fifth-place finish in eight total events.
By a wide range of metrics, this has been the best season of Humana-Paredes’ and Wilkerson’s partnership. Their winning percentage is a full 10 points higher this year than last, the year in which they won an Olympic gold medal. They won pool in all but one event, the season-opener in Brasilia, and that loss came 14-16 in the third to Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova.
Their nine losses this year would only come to teams in the top-10 of the world rankings, and six would come to Graudina and Samoilova and Carol and Rebecca, the gold and bronze medalists, respectively, at the World Championships. A seventh would come to Nuss and Brasher, the silver medalists (the other two were to Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, and Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw).
While in Adelaide, Tri Bourne and I recorded a podcast, taking on a few fan questions. One of them was what Mel and Brandie have to do to get over the fifth-place hump.
It isn’t anything to do or solve, really. It’s just playing well at the right time.
They’re too good not to start winning those quarterfinals soon.
Ana Patricia and Duda during a win over Puerto Rico/Volleyball World photo
A bummer finish to injury-riddled year for Ana Patricia and Duda
In the early afternoon hours on Thursday, group chats began pinging all over Adelaide, when a score of 2-0 appeared for Julia Donlin and Lexy Denaburg in their round of 16 matchup against Ana Patricia and Duda. It was later announced that the Brazilians and Olympic gold medalists forfeited due to injury, although the exact injury or the extent of it is unclear.
They hadn’t been themselves all season, and even took four months off to heal injuries both mental and physical. Still, they’re so talented they didn’t even need to be anywhere near full strength to win five straight bronze medals, and any time they are in a tournament, they are a contender to win.
But they struggled all week, allowing Poland and Australia to come close in pool and narrowly escaping Puerto Rico’s Allanis Navas and Maria Gonzalez, 24-22, 21-19, after Navas and Gonzales barely broke pool themselves. They clearly weren’t themselves. Whatever the ailment is, it must be a serious one for Ana Patricia and Duda to forfeit out of the biggest event of the year, just four wins away from winning a second World Championship and third straight World Championship medal.
Whatever it is, I hope they get the rest they need and come back fully healthy in 2026.
The sport is better with them in it.
Lexy Denaburg had an excellent World Champs/Volleyball World photo
Lexy Denaburg, Linda Bock fully arrive in tight Rookie of the Year race
It’s possible that, even had Ana Patricia and Duda played, that round of 16 match they forfeited could have been their last anyway. That’s how well Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin were playing at that point in the tournament, coming off their first career win over Anouk Verge-Depre and Zoe Verge-Depre in which they allowed the Swiss no answers after going down 8-13 at the first technical timeout.
Their only losses would come to Valentina Gottardi and Reka Orsi Toth, and the aforementioned quarterfinal from Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher in which they were gifted zero errors.
The Rookie of the Year race could come down to Denaburg, Switzerland’s Leona Kernen, and German defender Linda Bock, who was tremendous all year alongside Louisa Lippmann. Bock and Lippmann won two medals this season, added four more top-10s, and logged a number of resume-boosting wins, including a pair over Carol and Rebecca and, in Adelaide, a win over Germany’s No. 1 team, Cinja Tillmann and Svenja Muller.
Kernen’s season was slightly derailed due to no fault of her own, as she had to sit out much of the summer and all of the fall with Tanja Huberli out with an injury. Prior to Huberli getting surgery, the Swiss won silver at a Challenge in Yucatan, backed it up the next week with a fifth at an Elite in Quintana Roo, swept the Verge-Depres for gold at home in Spiez, and took a fourth in Gstaad.
Melanie Paul hits a jump serve at the World Championships/Volleyball World photo
Melanie Paul: Rising Star
I was on the comms with Kerri Pottharst as Germany’s Melanie Paul and Lea Kunst battled into three sets with Taliqua Clancy and Jana Milutinovic in the second round of pool play. It was a must-win for the Aussies and a nice-to-have for Germany. Paul played as if her life was on the line, digging everything, transitioning with tremendous efficiency, bombing jump serve after jump serve. Pottharst is an Australian legend, an Olympic gold medalist who had every right to be a homer on the broadcast.
She wasn’t.
“MVP” she said of Paul in the middle of Paul’s sensational run. Indeed, Paul and Kunst, Germany’s bright young stars, won the third set, 15-6, then won again the next night, 16-21, 21-18, 15-9 against China’s Xinyi Xia and Xu Yan, finishing pool 3-0 and earned the top spot as the 36 seed.
This comes as little surprise to me. My wife, Delaney, coached Paul at Pepperdine and played a Swiss Tour event with her, losing the finals in three to a young Swiss team named Zoe Verge-Depre and Esmee Bobner, who would later take fifth at the Paris Olympic Games. But to see Paul begin to realize her monstrous potential was a joyous thing to watch, as you never do know if and when that moment will come for an athlete.
Between Paul, Anna Grune, and Linda Bock, Germany is now replete with talented defenders to supplement Cinja Tillmann. And this doesn’t even mention Kunst, Sandra Ittlinger and Louisa Lippmann, all of whom have proven capable of winning at the Elite level.
Jasmine Fleming and Stefie Fejes celebrate a win over Lithuania/Volleyball World photo
The Future for Australia Beach Volleyball is Bright
I was playing a game of no-jump with my good friend and coach, Jordan Cheng, on the eve before his team, Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw, debuted this World Championships against Australia’s youngsters, Stefie Fejes and Jasmine Fleming. I asked his thoughts, and after poring over film, he said he was impressed. Physical team, he said. Jumpy. It’ll be a tough match to win.
It was.
Fejes, just 20, and Fleming, 22, proved to be a worthy opponent for every team in their deep pool, losing tight to Cheng and Shaw, and Spain’s Dani Alvarez and Tania Moreno, before upsetting Lithuania’s Monika Paulikiene and Aine Raupelyte in three to break pool.
For a long time, Australia has been a top-heavy federation, with only one legitimately competitive team: Mariafe Artacho Del Solar and Taliqua Clancy. With Artacho Del Solar enjoying maternity leave — she did the comms with me during Fejes’ and Fleming’s win over Lithuania and is enjoying motherhood — it has left Australia in limbo of having any chance of winning medals.
That time is coming soon.
On the same day that Fejes and Fleming upset Lithuania, Kayla Mears and Tara Phillips swept Poland to break pool. Earlier in the year, Georgia Johnson and Elizabeth Alchin stunned Valentina Gottardi and Reka Orsi Toth in Montreal. And then there is Clancy, who is still, make no mistake, one of the best in the business, grooming 24-year-old Jana Milutinovic.
With that glut of talent, Australia will be competitive again, and soon.
