Puerto Vallarta - Enjoying the friendliness of the people, the warmth of the temperatures, the smoothness of the imported sand, and even the moderate humidity that hovered on the Playa Camarones complex, Latvia’s second-seeded Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins toppled Italy’s 14th-seeded twin brothers Paolo Ingrosso/Matteo Ingrosso Saturday, to capture the men’s gold medal at the double-gender $150,000 FIVB Puerto Vallarta Open, the third event on the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar.

Gold Medal Match

Latvia’s team, who spent one month training at a beach resort in Egypt that is similar weather conditions to what they faced in this tournament in Puerto Vallarta, defeated the Italians in straight sets, 21-17, 21-15 in 44 minutes before an enthusiastic crowd enjoying the first FIVB World Tour held in Puerto Vallarta.

With Italy’s methodical Ingrosso twins coming out of the gate fast, they started the gold medal match with ease and fluidity using a "side out" plan with few mistakes to take the early lead, eventually increasing it to 19-17 before Latvia's hard-hitting and aggressive-playing rallied to win first set. In the second set the start was totally different as Latvia came out with more confidence, bursting out to a 4-1 lead before extending it twice to eight point margins.

Both 12-year FIVB veterans, Latvia’s Samoilovs/J. Smedins, who teamed up last year on the advice of their parents and achieved the FIVB World Ranking No. 1 spot, have played in 16 FIVB World Tour events together, with eight final four appearances including three gold medals. In the first two events this year, the Latvian duo has two final fours including a silver medal last week in Shanghai.

Lavtia’s gold medal winners ended their first trip to Puerto Vallarta with an unblemished 7-0 record including winning all 14 sets they played, the FIVB gold medal, and $11,000 in prize money for their fourth career FIVB World Tour gold medal as a team.

Latvia's Aleksandrs Samoilovs passes to teammate Janis Smedins. The second-seeded team took home the gold at the $150,000 FIVB Puerto Vallarta Open.

Looking back on the tournament and the gold medal match, Latvia’s Samoilovs said, "We started tentatively in all of our matches here in Mexico, but we just kept getting stronger and were able to win them all. Against the Italians, whom we only played against once before last year in Durban (South Africa,) we were unsettled at first but then we found our grove didn’t make many mistakes. The momentum built up to where we ended up with a much easier win in the second set. This was a great place for us to play and we look forward to the opportunity to return again. The sand was remarkable in texture and stayed cool even when it was very hot."

Italy’s Ingrosso twins have played on the FIVB World Tour since 2008 and this was their first final four finish and first silver medal. They were also attempting to help Italy win three consecutive FIVB World Tour gold medals as the first two tour stops this year in China (Fuzhou and Shanghai) were both won by Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo. Prior to this year, Italy had never won a men’s gold medal on the FIVB World Tour.

With their best career finish on the FIVB World Tour, Italy’s P. Ingrosso/M. Ingrosso leave Puerto Vallarta with a 6-1 tournament record, the silver medal, and $8,000 in prize money to share.

Mexico Wins Bronze Medal

Giving their home country fans something to cheer about in the bronze medal match, Mexico’s top-seeded Lombardo Ontiveros/Juan Virgen came out strong, and then gallantly held on to overcome Germany’s eighth-seeded Eric Koreng/Finn Dittelbach, winning the first set 21-16, dropping the second 18-21, and then rallying in the deciding third set to win the match 21-19. The match took a very heated 62 minutes to finish - the third-longest match of the men’s tournament.

In recording the highest finish in the history of the FIVB World Tour for Mexico, Ontiveros/Virgen won the bronze medal by taking the third set that saw them tie the score at 11-11 and then exchange points well past the regulation 15 total of points. Counting the 11-11 score, the set was tied 11 times before Germany’s Dittelbach went wide left on a kill attempt to end the set and match.

Extending themselves to the limit, Mexico’s Ontiveros/Virgen have both played in FIVB World Tour events for more than seven years, but together this was their eighth event, the first final four, and their first bronze medal. Their highest previous finish was a ninth place they earned this year in Fuzhou, China. The Mexican team leaves Puerto Vallarta with the bronze medal and a $6,000 prize.

After their bronze medal match loss to Mexico, Germany’s Koreng/Dittelbach leave Puerto Vallarta with a fourth-place finish and $4,500 in prize money.

Happy 300th

The FIVB Puerto Vallarta Open is the 300th FIVB men’s event since the FIVB began play in 1987 and the 263rd FIVB women’s tournament since each started play in 1992.

The second of 10 FIVB Open events in 2014, the FIVB Puerto Vallarta Open had men’s action which ran from Tuesday through Saturday and a women’s competition running from Wednesday through Sunday. The tournament format had a one-day qualification tournament to determine the final eight spots in each gender’s 32-team main draw tournaments. That was followed by round-robin pool play and a single-elimination bracket for the final 24 teams.

Viva Mexico

Mexico is hosting the Inaugural FIVB Beach Volleyball U17 World Championships this year in Acapulco on July 15th-20th.