Giulia Gasparri and Federica Bacchetta defended their ITF Beach Tennis World Championships in dramatic fashion after battling back from a break down in the second set to overcome Flaminia Daina and Sofia Cimatti for a second straight year in Cervia.

The tournament top seeds rode their luck after Daina and Cimatti raced away with the first set before gathering pace in the third to round out a 2-6 6-4 6-3 victory.

"I'm very happy, excited," Gasparri said before exhaustion finally caught up with her after the celebrations. "We are so happy for this result," Bacchetta continued. "It was a really tough match."

In 2017 it was Daina and Cimatti who battled back to force a deciding set under the floodlights; this time the roles were reversed as Gasparri and Bacchetta found their form too late to rescue the first set, before a slice of good fortune midway through the second immediately changed the complexion of the contest.

Every ball counts in beach tennis: no lets, no second serves, no second point at deuce. A foot fault at 40-40, while leading by a set and a break, in the ITF Beach Tennis World Championships final? That can turn a match on its head and so it proved.

Daina stood incredulous after the call, having won the rally that she believed had put the No. 2 seeds into a 5-2 lead. Instead, she joined Cimatti back at her chair with the second set once again on serve at 4-3. The volcanic world No. 3 did well to brush off the incident and refocus, but the gift of a game injected new life into the defending champions, who won the next three to send the match into a decider.

"The match changed at 4-2," Bacchetta admitted. "If we had changed ends at 5-2, it would have been really, really hard. But step by step, we tried to find some energy together to be focused, and finally we reached the title."

The packed grandstands were treated to some of the finest shot-making of the week as the all-Italian contest centred on touch and angles over the brute strength both duos are capable of unleashing, opting instead for a string of spectacular diving volleys to keep points alive and, on a handful of occasions, hit clean winners.

Daina and Cimatti's route to the final saw them save two match points in the quarter-finals and squander seven in Saturday's 6-3 7-6(5) semi-final win over Eva D'Elia and Veronica Visani, so to see last year's beaten finalists surge to a 4-0 lead suggested that the luck might be in their favour.

In truth, it was an error-strewn start from the defending champions that opened the door perhaps a result of their 107-minute tussle with Maraike Biglmaier and Rafaella Miiler, which finished 6-1 4-6 7-5, but Daina and Cimatti were worthy of their leads in both sets, overhauling an early break in the second before coming so close to the 5-2 lead that never came.

"We started not really good, I think because we felt a lot of pressure," Bacchetta conceded. "We wanted - we needed - to win this title, but at the beginning we played so bad.

"We've played a lot of finals against Daina and Cimatti. We know it's always a tough match, and we have to play well and stay focused at all times."

Gasparri tried to ensure she and Bacchetta kept their composure early in the third set by dancing along to the DJ's tunes at the second change of ends - both duos needed to loosen up after three consecutive breaks of serve - but the Forzas were far more intense as the title came into view and tired limbs became a factor.

In the end, it was the top seeds defence that won the day, Bacchetta barking the instructions as she threw herself around the court and Gasparri's reflexes impressing time and again. When Daina's final block-lob drifted harmlessly wide on their first championship point, the duo sank to their knees in the middle of the court in an embrace of equal parts joy and relief.

Does it feel different the second time around? They are more of a team in 2018, Bacchetta says: "Last year, everything was new. But now we have found more feeling and we feel good together."

"Now we play better than last year," Gasparri added. An ominous notion should they target a hat-trick of titles together in 2019.