Tari & Niemeier won Sveti Vlas Futures gold, Sveti Vlas, Bulgaria; signals Hungary’s rise on the Beach Pro Tour
Tari & Niemeier promising bright future for Hungarian beach volleyball – FIVB
Hungarian beach volleyball is evidently experiencing a rise, especially in the men’s department. The country’s first-ever Beach Pro Tour gold was won under two years ago by Domonkos Doczi & Bence Streli at the Qidong Futures, on the same weekend when Boldizsar Borbely & Lukas Niemeier earned a silver medal at the Bujumbura Futures, shortly after the Hungarian federation received its first coach support funding from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment. There was a reshuffle in the Hungarian pairings before the start of this season, and the medals have started pouring in. And that is before Bence Streli & Artur Hajos, the country’s only team in the FIVB World Ranking top 100, training under Italian Empowerment coach Fosco Cicola, have even started their Beach Pro Tour season!
Since the start of the 2026 Beach Pro Tour, the team of 22-year-old Domonkos Doczi and 19-year-old Akos Veress has made the podiums at three of the four Futures tournaments attended, with gold in Rarotonga and bronzes in Tahiti and Cervia. Meanwhile, the third Hungarian duo – Bence Tari & Lukas Niemeier, both 19 years old – picked up Sveti Vlas Futures gold and Tahiti Futures silver, in addition to fourth-place finishes at the Futures stops in Madrid and Cervia.
FIVB.com went looking for the reasons for this impressive growth in an interview with Tari & Niemeier and their 23-year-old coach Csanad Petik taken on the premises of the Sveti Vlas Futures in Bulgaria, just after the Hungarian teenagers had won their pool and advanced in the tournament, eventually leading to their first-ever gold medal .
“I think the main reason is the rivalry between us, teammates. We have a new coach from this season, which gives me extra motivation. We push as hard as we can – every day, at the trainings, at the tournaments – so, I think that’s the secret,” said Bence Tari.
“This season we implemented some new stuff, new coaching, and obviously we are also a new pair, as is the other Hungarian team (Doczi & Veress). It is really good that we push each other in every training and this competitiveness just helps us develop even more and show it in the tournaments,” Lukas Niemeier added.
Unlike the more experienced players that have been training in Italy with coach Fosco Cicola, the two younger duos train under the supervision of Hungary’s second coach Csanad Petik, himself a Beach Pro Tour player until recently.
“We worked a lot in the pre-season. We had a clear plan about what we wanted – with the team, with our coaching staff. We work together really closely,” Petik told FIVB.com. “We, as coaches, have a really close connection with our players. We’ve known them since around 2020, so we know what they have to improve and we know what our goal with them is. These are new partnerships. Compared to Streli & Hajos, they are a little bit behind in the international flow and are a little bit less known, at least until this season. Tari & Niemeier have a really good chemistry between them. They are friends on and off the court, and we can see it on the court. They keep fighting until the last point and, when the match is over, they fight for the next one. This mentality is really important.”
Thanks to Hungary’s ambition to develop its beach volleyball and the growth of its players, their young athletes had the privilege to travel to and compete in places like the Cook Islands and French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean. This is about as exotic as it gets for an average European.
“I think it’s really great to have tournaments all around the world and visit places that maybe we would have never even heard about or, for sure, never visited in our lives,” Niemeier pointed out. “Both the Cook Islands and Tahiti left a really good impression, not only because of the results. The environment was fantastic. It was so beautiful everywhere we went. So, we are really happy that we had the opportunity to play there.”
Despite the sudden success, these Hungarian teens are not jumping ahead of themselves. They have their ambitions and dreams, but they are keen to follow the process one step at a time.
“Obviously, we want to be the best, but there are steps to take before that. We have short-term goals and long-term goals. So, we are working to achieve our short-term goals first and, then, we are moving on,” said Tari.
“This is what we are fighting for – to be the first in Hungary and to be the first in Europe,” coach Petik confirmed. “This season our plan was to get to the top, especially in the European Futures, and right now we are there. At his tournament in Sveti Vlas, we would obviously like to go to the podium, to get European medals. Then, we would like to be competitive in the Challenge and Elite tournaments, go to the European Championships and, of course, to the Olympics.”
After conquering gold in Sveti Vlas, Tari & Niemeier are already testing the level of a Challenge tournament. In the week after their success in Bulgaria, they travelled to neighboring Turkiye and took part in the Alanya Challenge. Destiny placed them against fellow Hungarians Doczi & Veress in the first qualification round. After a three-set battle, Tari & Niemeier grabbed the victory, getting back at their compatriots for the loss they suffered in the Cervia Futures bronze medal match. They went on to make the main draw, but failed to get past the pool stage this time.
With FIVB Volleyball Empowerment, however, the outlook for Hungarian beach volleyball seems even more positive for the near future.
The Hungarian Volleyball Federation’s beach volleyball department has so far been allocated a total of USD 168,000 in FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national duos. Another USD 6,000 was granted for a national team coach development knowledge transfer program and USD 5,500 for beach volleyball equipment.
Experienced 51-year-old Italian coach Fosco Cicola started training Hungary’s first team some three and a half months ago. Streli & Hajos have been living and training with him in Rome.
“Because of the Empowerment program, they have a very good opportunity to train in Italy, together with the Italian national team and other good teams like Czechia and Israel,” said coach Petik. “We will soon have a training camp together in Italy, so this will be the first time when all of the Hungarian national teams train together.”
This camp will take place before next month’s 2026 CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup Finals that Hungary is hosting in Budapest. The young players are eager to attend this camp and expect it to help enhance their growth as beach volleyball athletes and teams, but they are already indirectly benefiting from coach Cicola’s expertise.
“We will meet the new coach in the near future and we are looking forward to that,” Niemeier said. “We are in constant exchange with the first Hungarian team. We’ve known them for many years. I even played some tournaments with one of them last year. I think they have a really good role in helping us, because we are still very young. They obviously see that we will be competitors in the future or that we are already competitors to them, but they also see a bright future in us and try to help push us to the highest level.”
“I am also looking forward to meeting the new head coach and I hope that in the future we can work together as coaches and players,” said Petik. “I am really young. I need to gain a lot of knowledge and I think he is a really good coach and I can learn from him.”
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