Humana-Paredes, Wilkerson lose bid for third Montreal beach volleyball title in semis

There will not be a third straight title for Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson at the Montreal stop of the Elite16 beach volleyball circuit.

The Toronto pair fell 2-1 to Brazilian duo Thamela Coradello and Victoria Lopes in women’s semi-final action Sunday.

Set scores were 19-21, 22-20 and 15-7.

Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson claimed the 2023 and 2025 Montreal titles, winning Olympic silver in between. The Elite 16 tour did not have a Montreal stop in 2024.

The pair later rallied for a 2-1 (20-22, 21-12, 18-16) win over Svenja Muller and Cinja Tillmann of Germany in the women’s third-place game.

In men’s action Sam Schachter of Richmond Hill, Ont., and Jonathan Pickett of Wiarton, Ont., finished a strong tournament by defeating Hendrik Mol and Mathias Berntsen of Norway in the bronze medal match, 2-1 (16-21, 28-26, 15-12).

This was a first majors or Elite tournament win for Schachter teaming with Josh Binstock for silver at the FIVB Porec Major in Croatia in June 2015.

Schachter and Pickett played in the third-place game after a narrow 2-1 (21-19, 16-21, 16-14) loss to Andre Loyola Stein and Renato Lima de Carvalho of Brazil.

On Saturday, the Canadians upset top-ranked Jacob Holting Nilsson and Elmer Andersson in the quarter-finals.

“Today it was the shifting of the strategies throughout the match,” Picket said of the third-place win. “As you can see in the first set nothing was really working. There was a big score difference and then in the second and third set we changed strategies.

“A couple of reminders to ourselves on blocking and serving … little tweaks and no hesitation, we fully executed.”

Coradello and Lopes were set to take on Americans Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher while Lima de Carvalho and Loyola Stein were scheduled to face Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum.