Burmakin and Kuptsov seal Euro gold in Bulgaria
Where France led, Russia have followed at the 2019 European Beach Tennis Championships in Kranevo, Bulgaria, as world No.1 Nikita Burmakin and compatriot Sergey Kuptsov beat Spain’s Antomi Ramos Viera and Gerard Rodriguez to become just the second non-Italian winners of the men’s European crown.
The No.3 seeds weathered a marathon semi-final showdown against Italian top seeds Doriano Beccaccioli and Davide Benussi to prevail 7-6(5) 3-6 6-4 as the Spanish duo prevented an all-Russian showdown by beating Nikolai Gurev and Ivan Syrov 6-3 6-4.
The gold medal clash ensured that either the Russians or Spaniards would follow in the footsteps of French defending champions Theo Irigaray and Mathieu Guegano, who fell to Ramos Viera and Rodriguez in the quarter-finals.
But after Beccaccioli and Benussi had sealed bronze, Burmakin and Kuptsov proved a match too far for the Spaniards, the Russians running away with a 6-4 7-6(6) victory to seal the gold.
“We are very happy to have finally won here – I’ve been trying for seven years,” said Burmakin, a mixed doubles European champion with Daria Churakova in 2015.
“We won the mixed doubles once, but the dream has always been to win the men’s. Last year we got very close, and the scenario was repeated, with a very tough semi-final before we managed to hold on today. After this, we’re looking forward to more victories.”
While the men’s event featured the first final without an Italian team since its inception in 2008, the women’s draw produced the sixth successive all-Italian final and 12th Italian champion as Sofia Cimatti defended her title alongside 2017 champion Giulia Gasparri, defeating former partner Flaminia Daina and compatriot Nicole Nobile 6-3 2-6 6-1.
In the bronze medal match, Chruakova and Irina Glimakova came out on top in an all-Russian affair, beating Ekaterina Kirgizova and Liudmila Nikoyan 7-5 3-6 6-3.
Daina took some measure of revenge in the mixed doubles, partnering Doriano Baccaccioli to a 6-4 6-2 victory over Cimatti and Tommaso Giovannini to claim the mixed doubles title, while Glimakova and Burmakin claimed bronze.
The Italian boys and Russian girls also dominated in the junior draws, with golds for Riccardo Manenti & Niccolo Cattani and Ekaterina Glazkova & Veronika Pershina in the 18-U draws, and Alessandro Galletti & Mattias Bertonelli and Arina Kosenkova & Anastasiia Semenova in the 14-U round robins.