12 September 2026 – The last five weeks delivered so much material that we briefly considered splitting it into two posts. We did not. So here is the full load: two Berlin rookies who sent half the country into a frenzy at the German Championship, a national championship without the sea (works anyway), the end of Germany’s most successful men’s team, a Norwegian moving indoors – and, as promised, the section on shoulder pain we teased last time. Grab a coffee, this will take a while.
Berlin & Brandenburg: Two Hauptstadt Beacher send national teams into the losers’ bracket
Anyone who backed Colin Paszkiewicz and Charlie Peters before the German Championship in Dortmund probably also bet on snow in August. The two Hauptstadt Beacher played exactly one German Beach Tour event this season (seventh in Hamburg) and collected their championship entry through regional tournaments and Beach Pro Tour Futures – bronze in Cabo Verde, silver in Qidong, a win at the Premium Cup in Coesfeld.
And then this: seeded 10th, they sent the national team Henning/Pfretzschner (seeded 2) into the losers’ bracket in the round of 16, 22:20, 13:21, 15:10. In the quarterfinal they saved three match points against the Sagstetter brothers and won 17:21, 27:25, 16:14. Unbeaten into the semifinal. There, against Lorenz/Rietschel, they still took the first set 21:17 before it tipped; the tiebreak ended 12:15. The bronze match went 19:21, 17:21 to the Sagstetters, who got their revenge for the quarterfinal. That leaves fourth place at their very first German Championship – and a Spontent commentator who completely lost it on that quarterfinal match point (the pair posted the clip on their own team website, worth a watch).
On the side: Berlin also took silver in Dortmund. Louisa Lippmann (BR Volleys) and Melanie Paul played their way into the final – more on that below.
And for everyone without championship ambitions who wasn’t there this year: we filmed a short clip of the atmosphere and the venue.
Germany: Championship premiere in Dortmund – 25,000 fans, no Baltic Sea, goosebumps anyway
After 33 years at Timmendorfer Strand, the German Championship was held from 27 to 30 August for the first time at Revierpark Wischlingen in Dortmund. The scepticism beforehand was loud („beach volleyball without a beach“), the verdict clear: more than 25,000 spectators across four days, a 6,500-seat centre court sold out on finals day, pyro, choreo banners, bubble guns. DVV president Markus Dieckmann put it plainly: „Of course the Baltic Sea is missing, no question. But everyone who was here is thrilled.“ According to the DVV the contract runs in Dortmund until the end of 2028; what happens afterwards is open.
Women: Sandra Ittlinger and Kim van de Velde took the title 21:16, 19:21, 15:12 against Lippmann/Paul – via the losers’ bracket, because they had lost the quarterfinal to exactly that pair. On the way back, the first set against Behlen/Schulz did not end until 35:33. Van de Velde is 34, became a mother for the second time last year and had actually planned to stop. „After baby number two I really thought that might have been it,“ she said after the final. Ittlinger and van de Velde had already won silver together (2018) and bronze twice (2021, 2024) – now the set is complete. Bronze went for the second year running to Nele Barber and 39-year-old Melanie Gernert, after Anna Grüne had to retire injured in the bronze match.
Men: Nils Ehlers and Lui Wüst won the final 21:16, 21:16 against Momme Lorenz and Tilo Rietschel. For Ehlers it is national title number four; for Wüst, after silver in 2024 and 2025, finally gold: „We had a lot of close matches here and fought our way through. At some point it clicked.“ Lorenz/Rietschel had lost their opening match to youngsters Bungert/Wüst and then fought through the entire losers’ bracket into the final – for both of them the best championship result of their careers.
On Friday, Karla Borger was also given her farewell: 18 years of elite sport, around 250 tournaments, 72 medals, world championship silver in 2013, two national titles, two Olympic Games. The top 10 highlights of the championship are here – the Berliners appear twice:
„NIGHT NIGHT bei der DEUTSCHEN MEISTERSCHAFT | TOP 10 HIGHLIGHTS – Dortmund“ · SPONTENT Beachvolleyball · 31.08.2026 · 5:52 min
The break-up of the week: On 10 September the DVV announced that Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler are going separate ways after five years. Ehlers stays with Lui Wüst, with whom he won Elite16 gold in Hamburg, the national title and the GBT stop in Munich this summer. Wickler, who missed the entire 2026 season with a shoulder injury (more on that below), will play with Lukas Pfretzschner – and with Pfretzschner as the blocker. „We have realised that Nils and I no longer have 100 percent the same ideas about working together,“ Wickler said. National coach Paul Becker sees the chance of two strong German men’s teams for Los Angeles 2028.
GBT final in Hamburg (13–16 August, in parallel with the European Championship): in the men’s draw Tristan Fröbel and Tamo Wüst won 21:14, 21:11 against Ole Sackermann and Benedikt Sagstetter – a pairing that had only existed for a few days, because Jonas Sagstetter was at the Europeans. Sackermann played his very first GBT event and won three straight tiebreaks with Sagstetter on the way to the final. In the women’s draw Anna Behlen and Sarah Schulz took their fourth title together: Behlen needed a three-minute medical timeout for her back in the tiebreak, came back and finished the match with two aces in a row.
World: Hamburg gold, a 33:35 against Israel and Mol’s goodbye to the sand
Elite16 Hamburg (5–9 August): the first Beach Pro Tour gold for Ehlers/Wüst – and at the same time the first gold for either of them individually. In the final they beat Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum 22:20, 21:9, with Ehlers on nine kill blocks and 22 points. In the semifinal they had turned around a set deficit against Martins Plavins (41!) and Kristians Fokerots (21): 16:21, 21:19, 15:12. In the women’s draw Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli (SUI) took the Hamburg title back, 21:19, 21:18 against world champions Graudina/Samoilova. All results are at Volleyball World.
„Gold Match – Ehlers/Wüst vs. Mol, A./Sørum, C | Highlights | Hamburg 2026 #BeachProTour“ · Beach Volleyball World · 09.08.2026 · 9:50 min
European Championship in Stare Jabłonki (12–16 August): four days after the Hamburg gold, Ehlers/Wüst lost in the round of 24 to Elazar/Cuzmiciov of Israel – 19:21 and 33:35. Yes, 33:35. All seven German teams were out by the round of 16 at the latest, with Müller/Tillmann coming closest at 17:21, 23:21, 12:15 against Stam/Schoon – who went on to become European champions (21:13, 21:11 in the final against Spain). In the men’s draw, Swedes Jacob Hölting Nilsson and Elmer Andersson won 21:18, 18:21, 15:10 against Mol/Sørum. The Europeans doubled as the first qualifier for Los Angeles 2028: the Netherlands and Sweden have already secured their places.
Montreal (19–23 August): Mol/Sørum won the last Elite16 of the season without dropping a set – their 38th win in 105 tournaments together. And then it was over, for now: Anders Mol is playing the 2026/27 season indoors for Rana Verona in the Italian SuperLega and will not be back on sand before April 2027. „We enjoyed every single point we had together here,“ he said. Possibly the best blocker of all time as a middle blocker in Italy – we are curious.
And what is Sørum doing in the meantime? The 2022 world champion stays on sand, but without a regular tournament partner: according to Store norske leksikon he will train with the Norwegian national team through the winter while Mol is in Verona. From April 2027 the two plan to compete together again – the goal is qualification for Los Angeles 2028, their third Games after gold in Tokyo and bronze in Paris. Before that there was European silver this season, their first defeat in six European finals in nine years. If you want to follow the break: Sørum is on Instagram, and the whole training group posts as Beachvolley Vikings.
Shoulder pain in beach volleyball: 3 reasons, 3 countermeasures
A promise is a promise. Clemens Wickler lost a full season to his shoulder, and if you ask around at the courts, he has plenty of company. The numbers from the FIVB injury study among professionals: around 22 percent of all overuse complaints concern the shoulder, with only knees (27 percent) and lower back (33 percent) ahead of it. A study in the Journal of Athletic Training (2024) found complaints in 93 percent of elite beach players over the course of a season – and 46 percent are playing with pain at any given moment. Beach volleyball is an overhead sport with sand as resistance, and that leaves marks. Three reasons that sports medicine keeps coming back to:
- Too much, too fast. Hundreds of attacks and serves per week, longer rallies than indoors, often with no build-up after the winter break. Overuse is the most common mechanism for professionals and recreational players alike – not the one spectacular accident, but the sum of everything.
- Muscular imbalance. Chest and lats (the accelerators) are strong in beach players, while the external rotators and scapular stabilisers (the brakes) lag behind. In roughly 30 percent of professionals there is even atrophy of the infraspinatus, a rotator cuff muscle – usually caused by irritation of the suprascapular nerve, as a review in the SEMS Journal summarises. Interesting: many of them have no pain at all.
- Limited mobility and technique. A stiff thoracic spine, lost internal rotation in the hitting arm, a shoulder blade that does not rotate along properly – then the rotator cuff has to do work it was not built for. On top of that, many of us drop the elbow too low during the swing.
So what helps? Three things that the FIVB injury prevention recommendations and the reviews above agree on:
- Train the brakes. Two to three times a week: external rotation with a band, prone Y-T-W exercises, rowing – light, clean, plenty of repetitions. It is the least spectacular and most effective measure on this list.
- Stay mobile. Thoracic rotation, cross-body stretch and sleeper stretch for the posterior shoulder capsule, and before playing, warm up your hitting progressively instead of going full power on the first ball.
- Manage load and take pain seriously. Increase serving and attacking volume slowly after breaks, plan rest into tournament weekends, have a coach check your technique. And: anyone in pain for more than two weeks, waking up at night or losing strength belongs with a doctor or physio – not at the next tournament.
One point that matters to us: a suspicious MRI is not automatically the reason for the pain. In overhead athletes, changes to tendons and labrum also show up in completely pain-free shoulders. What counts is the finding in the person, not in the image. None of this is individual medical advice – but maybe it is a nudge to pull that resistance band out of your bag more often.
The sand keeps going
The season is not over, only the 30-degree part of it. If you want to use the autumn to clean up technique and fundamentals – and your shoulder along with them – our camps for beginners and advanced players are here. Until next time: enjoy the dig.
Your team at Berlin-Beachvolleyball.de
