Andrew Schacht and Joshua Slack ended Brazil’s run of men’s medals at the beach volleyball World Championships as the Australians upset top-ranked Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos to claim the bronze medal.

In front of packed crowd of 7,000 fans in Gstaad, Switzerland the Adelaide-based pair won 21-17 and 21-19 in 42 minutes.

Schacht and Slack are the first Australian men’s team to medal at the world championships as the Athens 2004 Olympians collected their biggest payday on the World Tour with $US$35,000 for the third-place finish.

The gold was won by Americans Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser who defeated Russians Dmitri Barsouk and Igor Kolodinsky in the final.

“It is a great day now,” said the 30-year old Slack, “especially after we played so poorly in the morning semi-finals against the Russians.

"We have been playing together for a long-time now, so today’s medal really is a result of a lot of hard work. And, this finish comes in the biggest event in our sport outside of the Olympics.”

Ninth-place finishers in Athens where the Aussies were defeated by Emanuel and Ricardo in pool play, Schacht and Slack have now placed second and third in two of their past four tour events this season.

Schacht and Slack started Sunday with a 21-13 and 21-19 semi-final setback to Russians Barsouk and Kolodinsky.

Emanuel and Ricardo, who captured the 2003 World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, were eliminated from gold medal contention by Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers 21-16, 13-21 and 19-17 in a 68-minute semi-final match.

The women’s title was won by reigning Olympic champions May-Treanor and Walsh of the United States who defeated Jia Tian and Jie Wang of China 21-16 and 21-10 for their third-straight world title.

Tamsin Barnett and Natalie Cook of Australia placed ninth after losing in the round of 16.

AOC and FIVB.com