With their main rivals for the second US place, three-times Olympic champion Kerri Walsh Jennings and her partner Brooke Sweat out of the running, Sponcil and Claes made the most of their opportunity to improve their Olympic ranking points, beating Switzerland’s Tanja Huberli and Nina Betschart 21-19, 21-17 in the women’s final.

This is the fifth of six International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) four-star events offering Olympic ranking points before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The bronze medals went to Nadezda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina of Russia, who beat Latvia’s Anastasija Kravcenoka and Tina Graudina 21-18, 21-11.

Sponcil and Claes had qualified for the final with a 23-21, 21-17 win over Makroguzova and Kholomina, while the Swiss pairing beat Kravcenoka and Graudina 21-18, 21-16.

Earlier today Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan progressed to their fourth consecutive semi-finals on the Beach Volleyball World Tour.

The fourth-seeded Qatari pair, who reached all three finals at the previous World League stop in Cancun, progressed with an eighthfinal win Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner, 21-18, 21-17, followed by a 21-18, 21-16 win against Brazil’s Rio 2016 gold medallist Alison Cerutti and Alvaro Filho.

They will next meet Christiaan Varenhorst and Steven van de Velde of The Netherlands, with the other semi-final featuring Poland’s Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak against Adrian Carambula and Enrico Rossi.

The 14th-seeded Dutch duo had to come back from a set down before progressing to the quarter-finals after an extended tie-breaker against Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl, whom they beat 18-21, 21-19, 16-14.

They then beat Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb of the United States 21-19, 21-12.

The quarter-final that attracted the most attention this afternoon was that between the teams just above and below the red line in the current provisional Olympic ranking.

The team below, Kantor and Losiak, made sure the qualification race will get even more interesting in its conclusion with a 23-21, 21-14 victory over Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins.

In the eighthfinals, the Polish pair had earned a 21-18, 25-23 win over Switzerland’s Marco Krattiger and Florian Breer.

"It’s great for us, especially because the last time we played semi-finals was maybe two years ago," Losiak told FIVB.

"We had some injuries, other problems, so it’s good that we are back, we are still fighting for Olympic qualification and this is the most important thing right now, for sure.

"But we don’t want to think about it.

"We just want to play our best beach volleyball.

"So far we did and I hope we will continue tomorrow."

In an all-Italian quarter-final, 11th-seeded Carambula and Rossi dominated 13th-seeded Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo to win 21-16, 21-18.

Earlier, they had knocked another big team out of the way in straight sets, prevailing 21-14, 21-18 over Nick Lucena and Phil Dalhausser of the United States.