To round off their first season together, Anouk and Zoé Vergé-Dépré will be competing at the World Championships in Australia from Friday. The Bernese are convinced that the moment has come for the big coup.
13.11.2025, 04:01
13.11.2025, 07:29
SDA
Concrete instead of palm trees is the name of the game for Anouk and Zoé Vergé-Dépré, who are putting the finishing touches to their preparations for the title matches in Adelaide in an industrial district on the outskirts of Bern. There, the beach volleyball players are fine-tuning their serve, timing and coordination. "Technically and physically, they are ready," says coach Denis Milanez, who believes they can win a historic world championship medal. "They have shown this season that anything is possible."
The sisters have two podium finishes at elite tournaments to their name, but have often finished in the quarter-finals. Nevertheless, 33-year-old Anouk and her sister Zoé, who is six years younger, believe they are on the right track. In an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency, they explain how they experienced their first year on the tour together.
Is it possible to reach top form at a certain time, or does rhythm play a more important role?
Zoé: "When the season lasts as long as it does for us, hardly anyone can play consistently at their limit. That's why I think you can prepare in a targeted way so that you can get more out of yourself at a particular tournament."
Anouk: "We travel a lot and play in very different conditions. Our bodies and minds don't always cope with that equally well. That's why we deliberately took a break this season, which is actually unusual."
In view of the upcoming World Cup?
Anouk: "Exactly. We've been at it since the beginning of March, that's a long time. That's why we had to prioritize. We certainly paid the price for the break at the European Championships, but it was necessary. Otherwise we wouldn't have had enough energy until the end of the year. We didn't just want to travel to the World Championships in good shape, we wanted to go one better there."
Your objectives are correspondingly aggressive: you have said that you want to win a medal.
Zoé: "Yes, we owe it to ourselves after all the effort we put in during the preparation. It would be wrong to say: 'I'm just happy to be there'. We want to go there to win. In the Swiss sporting world, you can be a bit braver and set your sights high. Even if you're not the favourite, you should visualize success and believe you can achieve it."
That would be a huge success. Never before has a Swiss women's duo won a World Championship medal.
Anouk: "Setting ourselves a high target doesn't mean we underestimate the difficulty. Performing consistently over nine days is a huge challenge. Everything has to come together. But if you don't believe in success, it won't happen."
What do you associate with the venue Adelaide in Australia?
Anouk: "We've never been to Australia before."
Zoé: "Exactly, a first, I'm excited. Our parents will be there, which is also new for us. Even before we got together as a team, that was only the case at one World Cup."
How does the fact that you don't know the exact conditions there affect your preparation?
Anouk: "We're used to that. We also had a lot of new destinations this year..."
Zoé: "...and the weather has often been crazy."
Anouk: "This constant adaptation to the conditions is part of the art of our sport. Of course, jet lag also plays a role in Australia, so we thought carefully about when we would arrive."
How did you decide?
Anouk: "We arrive a week in advance and have four training days on site, which is not a lot for this distance. We realized that it's better for us not to arrive too early. With longer preparations, our strength wanes towards the end of the tournament."
After Australia, you have now completed your first year together as a team. What were your biggest realizations?
Zoé: "How different we are. We were often compared and I always thought we were similar. But we work very differently in many ways."
Anouk: "Except that neither of us are morning people."
Zoé: "That's true. We're more similar off the pitch - how we spend our time and what gives us energy. Nevertheless, we've also discovered new sides to each other."
In terms of play or personally?
Anouk: "Both. Working together is different from sitting together at the family table. Now we can see how the other deals with pressure, stress and physical strain. We've learned a lot about each other and also adapted our communication."
What do you mean by that?
Anouk: "If something doesn't suit me, I tend to be the one who has to let out my anger. And Zoé tends to withdraw. Both have advantages and disadvantages. We had to learn how to pick each other up in difficult situations."
Were there any things that surprised you?
Zoé: "How quickly we got to a good level. A lot of things were new because we had the same position in the teams before. We had to practise the upfield pass alone. It could also have been the case that we were constantly whistled off in the first game and had to switch back to playing downfield. But that was soon no longer an issue. We're not where we want to be yet, but we're making rapid progress and our commitment is there."
Anouk: "At first, we had respect for the fact that something could break down between us because we have to speak our minds sometimes. This direct communication can be tough. It was nice to realize that our relationship didn't suffer as a result. We are good at differentiating: This is now an intense phase - and our sisterly relationship goes beyond that."
Third place in Gstaad must have been the highlight so far.
Zoé: "Definitely. Everyone on the tour wants to win a bell like this - even more so as a Swiss duo. It was a wonderful moment, especially because it came so early in our partnership. We hadn't necessarily expected it. But we also made it clear beforehand that we wanted to be on the podium. That showed what is possible with the right attitude."
