
2008 Olympic champion Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena capped off the Gstaad Major on Sunday with straight-sets wins in their semifinal and gold-medal match to win the FIVB Beach Volleyball 5-Star World Tour event in Gstaad, Switzerland.
Dalhausser and Lucena, who have been playing together since August 2015 after first competing together in 2005, earned a 21-18, 21-19 straight sets win over the Polish duo of Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak to win the gold medal. They finished the tournament with straight-set wins in all seven of their matches, with none lasting longer than 48 minutes.
The 6-foot-9 Dalhausser, who was born in Switzerland, made four key blocks during the 40-minute sweep of the Poles in the final. Dalhausser, nicknamed “The Thin Beast,” and the 6-foot-1 Lucena, a Florida native nicknamed “The Greyhound,” opened up a big lead in the second set and held off a late rally by the Polish team.
Dalhausser and Lucena entered the final as the No. 3 seed. They finished second at the Gstaad Major last year. The victory marked the third overall in Gstaad for Dalhausser, who won a world title there in 2007 with Olympic gold-medal-winning teammate Todd Rogers.
Dalhausser and Lucena advanced to the finals with after overcoming Loyola Stein and Evandro Goncalves Oliveria Jr. in the Sunday morning semifinals by scores of 21-12, 21-18. The U.S. duo lost to Goncalves and then-partner Pedro Solberg Salgado in the Gstaad final last year.
Gary R. Blockus is a journalist from Allentown, Pennsylvania who has covered multiple Olympic Games. He is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.