Sanne Keizer

Sanne Keizer (born 6 February 1985) is a Dutch beach volleyball player who plays as a right-side defender with her partner Madelein Meppelink. Her career highlights include two gold, two silver and four bronze medals on the FIVB World Tour. She is a two-time European Champion and she represented the Netherlands at the 2012 Summer Olympics, finishing ninth with Marleen van Iersel.

Keizer took up indoor volleyball at the age of 11 and spent several years playing in the Dutch volleyball leagues. She competed in her first international beach volleyball event in 2002 and became the inaugural U18 World Champion the same year. Keizer debuted on the World Tour the following year. For the next eight seasons, she had limited international success competing with three different partners. Her breakthrough came at the end of 2008 when she teamed up with van Iersel. The pair entered the top ten of the world rankings the year after and medalled on the World Tour five times in total, including their first World Tour title in 2011. They continued to play together until Keizer retired from beach volleyball at the end of 2013.

After a four-year hiatus, Keizer returned to full-time competition partnered with Meppelink. Having been a blocker in the first leg of her career, she came back as a defender instead. Keizer and Meppelink found success quickly, medalling on the World Tour twice in their first season together and winning the 2018 European Championships.

Early life, education, and family

Keizer was born on 6 February 1985 in Doetinchem, Netherlands. As a child, she was a competitive swimmer before switching to water polo because her parents felt that she should play a team sport instead. She was called to the junior national water polo team, but eventually left the sport because the chlorinated swimming pool water was tinting her blond hair green and she was afraid of going to the hairdressers. At the age of 11, she took up indoor volleyball as she wanted to continue playing a ball sport. From 1996 to 2002, Keizer played for her local club, Orion Volleybal Doetinchem, where she rose from the youth ranks to the club's first team that played in the Eerste Divisie, the third division of the Dutch volleyball league system.

Keizer was scouted by the national beach volleyball team when she was 15. For the next few years, she continued to play club indoor volleyball while spending the summer off-seasons training with the junior national beach volleyball team in Dwingeloo. On the indoor side, she transferred from Orion to Longa '59 for the 2002–03 season, before moving to Amsterdam to spend one season playing for VV Martinus in the Eredivisie, the highest division of the Dutch volleyball league system. She continued to live in Amsterdam until she moved to The Hague in 2008.

In 2007, Keizer obtained an HBO diploma in Commercial Economics at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. She became a member of the Police Top Sport Selection ( nl, Politie Topsport Selectie) in May 2012. The programme ensures selected athletes receive support, including employment opportunities, from the Dutch police force. During her temporary retirement from beach volleyball, Keizer earned a master's degree in criminal investigation and worked as a police detective in The Hague. She left the police force upon her return to full-time competition at the end of 2017.

Keizer has two brothers and one sister. She is married to beach volleyball player-turned-coach Michiel van der Kuip, and the couple have two children, twins born in 2016.

Career

2002–2004: Junior and early years

Keizer made her international beach volleyball debut at the 2002 U18 European Championships in August, where she and Arjanne Stevens won the silver medal. Two weeks later, the pair became the inaugural U18 World Champions with an unbeaten tournament run in Xylokastro, Greece.

Following her success on the junior circuit, Keizer debuted on the FIVB World Tour in 2003, partnering with Merel Mooren at the $150K Hellas Open in June. The duo did not progress past the qualifying rounds in Hellas or in their next four events. In their final tournament of the year at the $150K Lianyungang Open in August, Keizer and Mooren beat teams from Spain and Sweden to advance to Keizer's first main draw on the World Tour. They lost all three of their group stage matches in the main draw and did not progress further. Keizer concluded her first season on the World Tour ranked 70 in the world with Mooren.

Keizer and Mooren continued to struggle to qualify for main draws on the World Tour the following year, making it out of the qualifiers twice in their first eight tournaments. They also competed in two events on the Challenger and Satellite circuit in August, winning one gold medal. Towards the end of the season, the pair had accumulated sufficient ranking points to directly enter the World Tour main draws of the $180K Milan and Rio de Janeiro Opens, finishing 25th and 17th respectively. They ended the year with an improved world ranking of No. 39.

2005–2007: Partnering with Leenstra

After two seasons with Mooren, Keizer switched partners and played with Marrit Leenstra from 2005 to 2007. In the first year of their partnership, the duo did not place higher than 13th in the first ten World Tour events they entered. Seeded 11th at their next tournament, the $200K Montreal Open in August, they upset two top-ten seeds on their way to the semifinals where they lost to Brazil's third-seeded Talita Antunes and Renata Ribeiro, followed by another loss to Brazil's second-seeded Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar in the bronze-medal match. After Montreal, Keizer and Leenstra had top-ten finishes in four of their last five tournaments of 2005. They also competed in their first World Championships in June as the No. 22 seeds, posting three wins and two losses to tie for 17th place. They closed out their first season as teammates ranked 13th in the world.

Over the next two years, Keizer and Leenstra had limited success on the international circuit and were relegated to the qualifiers for the majority of 2007. Their best results were top-ten finishes at the double-elimination $200K St. Petersburg and Porto Santo Opens in 2006. As the No. 20 seeds in St. Petersburg, they recorded a three-set upset over the third-seeded Tian Jia and Wang Jie of China, before falling to the eighth-seeded Nila Håkedal and Ingrid Tørlen of Norway in the fourth round of the losers bracket. In Porto Santo, the pair finished in seventh place as the No. 16 seeds, scoring upsets over the higher-seeded Cuban teams of Milagros Crespo and Imara Esteves Ribalta, and Dalixia Fernández and Tamara Larrea. They were knocked out of the competition by the eighth seeds from Germany, Rieke Brink-Abeler and Hella Jurich. By the end of 2007, their world ranking had dropped to No. 44.

Throughout the course of their partnership, Keizer and Leenstra were also active on the Nestea European Championship Tour, winning bronze medals at the €55K German and Swiss Masters in 2006. After failing to qualify two years prior, Keizer took part in the 2006 edition of the European Championships with Leenstra; they fell short of their No. 6 seed and finished ninth.

2008: Partnering with de Vries

After three seasons together, Keizer split from Leenstra and teamed up with Mered de Vries for 2008. The new pairing did not win any main draw matches in their first ten World Tour events. Their results picked up in July when they competed at the $300K Gstaad Grand Slam as the No. 26 seeds. Keizer and de Vries came through the qualifiers and upset two of the top-ten seeds on their way to the Round of 16, where they were defeated by Maria Elisa Antonelli and Vanilda Leão of Brazil. Later in the month, they achieved their highest finish as a team with a fifth place at the $300K Klagenfurt Grand Slam. Seeded 26th once more, they came back from a first-set loss to beat the fourth-seeded Talita and Renata of Brazil in the Round of 16, before losing to Ukraine's 27th-seeded Svitlana Baburina and Galyna Osheyko in the quarterfinals. They ended the year 31st in the world rankings.

2008–2010: Partnering with van Iersel

Towards the end of 2008, Keizer changed partners once again and paired up with Marleen van Iersel. She began to see better results on the international circuit, including her first World Tour podium at the $190K Japan Open in the spring of 2009. After losing their first match, the 13th-seeded Keizer and van Iersel won six consecutive matches to reach the final four, recording upsets over two top-five seeds along the way. They lost to Brazil's top-seeded Juliana Silva and Larissa França in the semifinals, then went on to beat the USA's 26th-seeded Angie Akers and Tyra Turner in the bronze-medal match. The bronze in Japan was only the second time a Dutch women's team had ever won a World Tour medal. Another bronze-medal match-up followed at the $300K Gstaad Grand Slam two months later. This time, the Dutch No. 13 seeds lost to the fourth-seeded Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs of the United States in two sets. Keizer and van Iersel also competed at the 2009 World and European Championships, and were stopped in the quarterfinals of both tournaments. They were the sixth-ranked team in the world at the end of the year.

Keizer and van Iersel made three more World Tour semifinals appearances the next season, but did not medal. The duo entered the 2010 European Championships as the No. 6 seeds, eventually finishing fourth with a loss to the German No. 1 seeds of Sara Goller

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