First FIVB title for Canada's Broder/Valjas at beach volleyball Fuzhou Open

Jamie Lyn Broder/Kristina Valjas from Canada defied the odds to win the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball Fuzhou Open here on Sunday.

Broder/Valjas appeared anything but underdogs on the final day of competition at the FIVB season opener. The Canadians beat defending champions Kerri Walsh/April Ross in their tough semifinal before winning the final against Germany's Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude 2-0 (21-17, 23-21).

In the bronze medal match, Walsh/Ross left with the medal after dashing local hopes by beating China's Wang Fan/Yue Yuan (13-21, 21-13, 15-11).

After an incredible tournament in Fuzhou, Broder/Valjas left the final with an absolute clean sheet, winning all of their seven matches.

Germany caught Broder/Valjas off guard at the start of the match, but the first set quickly evened out. The pressure of a gold medal began to weigh as a number of service errors from both sides gave away the points, but Valjas presence at the net and Broder's solid digs swung the score in Canada's favor.

The second set saw equally impressive play from Laboureur/Sude with a great Sude lob into the far corner at the halfway point. Two huge blocks by Valjas and strong serving took them to match point and the Canadians, clearly enjoying the moment made sure of the gold.

"Gold is the color, we wouldn't have had it any other way. What a tournament, we battled through a lot of three sets yesterday and today. A lot of really tough opponents so it feels so good to come away on top," said Broder.

"I don't know if I can remember anything that just happened. I'm in shock. We knew that they were going to be strong coming in. They are both solid players with great execution so we had to match that with our execution. We had to come and bring our aggressive attacks because that's our game and that's how we win. Our confidence is really up as we had so many people cheering for us, sending these messages, our families, our friends, our coach, everyone is behind us and that's what I think helped push us through this final game," said Valjas.

To reach the final, Broder/Valjas had the unenviable task of beating Walsh/Ross. The match was impossible to predict from start to finish, but the Canadians spirited performance won 2-1 (28-26, 14-21, 15-13).

Silver for Laboureur/Sude is only their second ever FIVB medal after winning silver at the 2013 Durban Open. Despite the disappointment of losing the final match, the Germans are happy with their set up for the season.

"We are a little bit disappointed because of the last game, but all in all we are very happy to win silver, it's a great feeling to go home with a medal," said Laboureur.

"It was a surprise that they played so good, they had a very good start in the season and they beat Kerri Walsh and April Ross so we knew that they had a really good tournament and we tried to do the right things against them but in the end they had a really good level and we couldn't reach our goals and tactics," said Sude.

The bronze medal match was between American veterans Walsh/Ross and local favorites Wang Fan/Yue Yuan producing a very unusual score. China came out hard in the first allowing little chance for Ross to exercise her big hits. Wang/Yue appeared comfortable in their game and the U.S. team found themselves stuck on ten points leaving the first set for China.

Walsh/Ross turned the game around in the second dominating the set as the Chinese team had done in the first. In the tie break Yue did a great job of receiving the U.S. powerful attacks, but Walsh/Ross had found their rhythm and bronze went to the United States 2-1 (13-21, 21-13, 15-11).

In its third consecutive year, the Fuzhou Open is the first double-gender event of the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar with a prize purse of 150,000 U.S. dollars.

The gold medal teams in each gender at the FIVB Fuzhou Open will each split 11,000 dollars, the silver 8,000 dollars, the bronze 6,000 dollars and fourth place 4,500 dollars. Endi