Just three days after the exciting Elite event in Saquarema came to a completion, another Brazilian city will take over as a Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour stop host. Starting on Wednesday, April 16, the capital Brasilia will welcome the best beach volleyball players for the third Elite tournament of the year.
Elite16 - Brasilia, Brazil - 2025
Elite action moves to Brasilia; Thamela & Victoria lead the women’s bracket
Women’s qualifiers and first pool matches to be played on Wednesday
Published 03:39, 15 Apr 2025
- Watch the Brasilia Elite on VBTV
A strong women’s line-up will take to the courts in Brasilia, headlined by home favorites Thamela Coradello & Victoria Lopes, who topped the podium in Saquarema on Sunday. They picked up their second Beach Pro Tour gold and overall fourth medal out of six appearances on the Tour as a pair so far and shot up to a team-high number seven in the FIVB World Ranking. Top-seeded in the main draw bracket, Thamela & Victoria will lead Pool A and will start their campaign against a team emerging from the qualifiers on Wednesday morning. In the other Pool A first-leg match, Austrian sisters Dorina Klinger & Ronja Klinger, ranked 10th in the world, will take on the recently formed Italian pairing of Valentina Gottardi & Reka Orsi Toth.
Saquarema silver medalists and number two in the World Ranking, USA’s Taryn Brasher & Kristen Nuss, will be seeded second in Brasilia, awaiting their first opponent in Pool B. They have medaled at each of their last six Beach Pro Tour appearances, starting from making runners-up at last year’s Brasilia Elite16. Their second opponent will emerge from the match between fellow Americans Toni Rodriguez & Kylie Kuyava-De Berg and experienced Brazilians Talita Antunes & Taiana Lima.
Reigning Olympic champions and 2024 Brasilia Elite16 gold medalists Ana Patricia Ramos & Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) of Brazil will start their Pool C campaign against Lithuanian Olympians Monika Paulikiene & Aine Raupelyte. That pool is headed by USA’s Terese Cannon & Megan Kraft, currently fourth in the World Ranking and seeded third in the upcoming tournament. The American pair achieved a fifth place result in Saquarema, putting an end to a podium streak that lasted five Beach Pro Tour stops in a row, including silver medals at December’s Doha Finals and at the Quintana Roo Elite in Mexico a couple of weeks ago.
Pool D will be headed by the world’s number three team, Tina Graudina & Anastasija Samoilova of Latvia, seeded fourth in the tournament. After collecting a few medals in the previous Tour seasons, most recently a bronze at the 2024 Doha Finals, and reaching the number one spot in the World Ranking, the two-time Olympians are now looking for the first podium in 2025. Their pool also features the newly formed Swiss pairing of Paris 2024 bronze medalist Tanja Huberli with 19-year-old rising star Leona Kernen. They have already collected their first Tour medal, a Yucatan Challenge silver in March. Brazil’s Andressa Cavalcanti & Taina Bigi will be Huberli & Kernen’s first opponent in Brasilia.
Seeded fifth in the main draw, Brazilian standouts Carol Solberg & Rebecca Cavalcanti will headline Pool E. The new Brazilian pair has had mixed results on the Tour so far. In between two ninth-place finishes, they triumphed as gold medalists at the Quintana Roo Elite in March. After making their Beach Pro Tour debut as a team last week in Saquarema, Swiss star sisters Anouk Verge-Depre & Zoe Verge-Depre will also start from Pool E in Saquarema. This is one of the two pools that will feature two teams from the qualifiers.
Pool F is the other one. Awaiting for their first rivals there are two heavyweight North American duos – the new team of reigning world champion Kelly Cheng with Molly Shaw of the United States, who reached the semifinals at both of their Tour appearances together so far, seeded sixth, and Paris 2024 Olympic silver medalists Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson of Canada, seeded seventh.
A single round of eight qualification matches, getting underway at 08:00 local time (11:00 UTC) on Wednesday morning, will fill the eight remaining main draw vacancies. The qualifier bracket is also filled with strong contestants, including the likes of French Olympians Lezana Placette & Alexia Richard and Clemence Vieira & Aline Chamereau, Finland’s Taru Lahti-Liukkonen & Niina Ahtiainen and Spain’s Belen Carro & Paula Soria, to name a few.
Once the main draw serves off, modified pool play format will determine the three teams per pool that will advance to the elimination rounds, which will eventually lead to Sunday’s medal matches in Brasilia.
