The top-seeded Brazilian duo, who had suffered a series of disappointing results heading into the tournament in the Croatian town, needed three games to overcome Austria’s Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst 21-13, 16-21, 15-12 in the final.

The result handed Cerutti, a silver medallist with Emanuel Rego at London 2012, and Schmidt their second title in six World Tour events and helped them banish the demons of a 17^th place finish last year.

It gave them a boost ahead of their bid for the Olympic crown on home sand at the iconic Copacaban Beach, where they will enter as the top-seeded team in the men’s competition.

Doppler and Horst were unable to capitalise on hauling themselves back into the match in the second game but the silver medal represents their best performance on this season’s World Tour.

Latvian pairing Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins took home the bronze medal with a marathon 19-21, 30-28, 20-18 victory over Canada’s Chaim Schalk and Ben Saxton.

“It is about time,” Schmidt said.

“We have not been playing that bad with our lowest finish being a fifth.

“We realise that there is a lot of pressure on us since we will be the top-seeded team in the Olympics along with being the best team on the World Tour at the end of last season.”

On an action packed day at the Poreč Major, where all four matches went the distance, Cerutti and Schmidt came from a game down to edge past Samoilovs and Smedins 18-21, 21-17, 15-11 to book their place in the final.

Doppler and Horst also did it the hard way as they fought back to beat Schalk and Saxton 17-21, 21-17, 19-17 in a match which lasted 51 minutes.

“We are very pleased with our finish,” Doppler said.

“What was pleasing was coming back in the second set against the Brazilians after being dominated by them in the first set.

“We had our opportunity to win the match, but we made errors when they were making the plays.

“Overall, what a great feeling to win a silver medal here in Croatia with so many Austrian fans in attendance.”