Aussies to face one another in one of Tlaxcala semis

An all-Australian clash shaped up for one of Sunday’s men’s semifinals at the Tlaxcala Challenge on the 2026 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, as Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher and D'Artagnan Potts & Jack Pearse made their way through Saturday’s eighthfinals and quarterfinals. In the other semifinal in Mexico, USA’s Timothy Brewster & Logan Webber will take on Argentina’s Tomas Capogrosso & Nicolas Capogrosso.

• Watch the Tlaxcala Challenge on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel

D'Artagnan Potts & Jack Pearse continued their victorious march in Tlaxcala that started from the qualifications and added two more wins on Saturday to extend their streak to five successful matches in Mexico and make it to their first ever Challenge-level semifinal. The 21^st-seeded Australians were pushed to tie-breakers in both of their games on the penultimate competition day, but persevered against higher seeded teams to advance. In the eighthfinals, Potts & Pearse came back from a set down to produce a 2-1 (17-21, 21-13, 15-13) upset of second-seeded Marco Krattiger & Leo Dillier of Switzerland, and in the quarterfinals, they battled it out for a 2-1 (21-19, 15-21, 15-12) victory over another Swiss opponent, 13^th-seeded Julian Friedli & Jonathan Jordan.

Paris 2024 Olympians Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher will offer the next challenge on the way of their compatriots. The fourth-seeded Aussies took a forfeit win in the eighthfinals after Swedish bracket leaders Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson’s injury withdrawal. Nicolaidis & Carracher went on to achieve a 2-1 (23-25, 21-13, 15-9) comeback win over American qualifiers Cody Caldwell & Jacob La Bouliere, with seven kill blocks from Carracher.

Another team from the United States, Timothy Brewster & Logan Webber, however, made it to the semifinals. In an all-American eighthfinal, 22^nd-seeded Brewster & Webber mounted a 2-1 (13-21, 21-16, 15-13) turnaround against 12^th-seeded Evan Cory & Derek Bradford, and followed up with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) shutout of Leon Luini & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands. In their first semifinal in the Challenge category as a pair, Brewster & Webber will take on third-seeded Argentineans Tomas Capogrosso & Nicolas Capogrosso, the highest seeded team that made it to the last four in Tlaxcala.

The Capogrosso brothers delivered emphatic sweeps of both their matches on Saturday. They claimed a 2-0 (21-17, 21-13) victory over 11^th-seeded fellow Argentineans Juan Amieva & Maciel Bueno in the eighthfinals, and mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-13) shutout of Austria’s Julian Horl & Laurenc Grossig, seeded 25^th, in the quarterfinals. In that game, Nicolas contributed as many as seven kill blocks and an ace towards a match-high 20 points.

The all-Aussie semifinal will open the last competition day in Tlaxcala at 10:00 local time (16:00 UTC). The second semifinal will serve off an hour later. The bronze medal match is scheduled at 14:00 (20:00), while the gold medal showdown is set to get underway at 15:00 (21:00).

Beach Pro Tour Tlaxcala Challenge: schedule and results

Quick links:
Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour
VBTV
Beach Volleyball World Facebook
Beach Volleyball World X
Beach Volleyball World Instagram
Beach Volleyball World YouTube
Subscribe to Volleyball World's Newsletter