Riesenrad rivalry goes the way of Norway

Anders (left) and Christian have been in sensational form in the past three weeks

Anders Mol and Christian Sørum are on fire at the A1 Major Vienna presented by Swatch – and the beach volley Vikings are in the mood to keep their unbeaten run going on the Danube Island.

The Norwegians silenced the Red Bull Beach Arena with a spellbinding performance that ended the latest chapter in the fairytale of Austrian heroes Clemens Doppler and Alex Horst.

Christian and Anders’ straight sets victory made it 17 matches without defeat for the Scandinavians as they look to add a two successive Beach Major Series title following their triumph in Gstaad.

“We’ve lost count of how many games it is now,” laughed Anders in disbelief. “The thing is, it’s not likely we’ve beaten poor teams… we’ve beaten some really, really good teams.

“We know we’ve won nothing yet but we hope we’ve won the Austrian fans and they will cheer for us tomorrow. We’ve enjoyed playing here and we actually said to each other during the technical timeout that we should take it all in and take a look around at the crowd. And it was amazing.”

The pair now take on heroes of theirs – Dutchmen Alex Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen for a place in the final.

“We’ve never beaten them before, we’ve lost all four matches,” added Anders. “It’s getting closer, there’s a few 2-1s in there.

“But if there’s a time to play them, the way we are playing, it’s now.”

For the defeated Doppler/Horst there is to be no repeat of their silver medal from last season’s World Championships on home sand.

But Alex remained in good spirits despite the defeat against the in-form Vikings.

“We finished fifth in a Major so we have to be pleased, it’s a really, really good result,” said the defender. “But we’ve shown we’re one of the top 10 teams in the world.

“But we came up against a team who are the best in the world right now. They deserved it, they are playing on another level right now. It’s easy for them now, they can’t put a foot wrong and they have that magical flow.”

Even though the majority of fans inside left the Red Bull Beach disappointed, Horst reserved his final words of the tournament for the legion of supporters who had backed him throughout the week.

“Goosebumps really don’t lie, these are the best fans in the world,” he said. “Where else in the world would people start queuing at 5am in the morning to watch beach volleyball?”

Action tomorrow on the Red Bull Beach Arena begins at 1pm with the first semifinal and you can watch every dig and dive, serve and spike live on BeachStream.

The Red Bull Beach Arena was packed to witness ultimately the Austrians' last game of the tournament