Usually competing at the highest level, reigning world and Olympic champions Ahman & Hellvig are set to take to the courts in Tlaxcala in a rare appearance at a Challenge tournament. Just last week, they won the first Elite event of the year, in Joao Pessoa, Brazil and reclaimed the number one spot in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking. They also won silver at the 2023 World Championship in Tlaxcala, so their return to the Mexican venue is certainly set to spark a lot of excitement among the local fans as well. Despite their young age, the 24-year-old Swedish jump-setters have already collected 19 medals on the Beach Pro Tour, 12 of which gold.
Based on their entry points, Ahman & Hellvig are seeded second in the men’s main draw in Tlaxcala, just below the bracket leaders – another, even younger Swedish duo that made plenty of headlines last season and are now back for more – 21-year-old Jacob Holting Nilsson and 19-year-old Elmer Andersson. They were still teenagers when they won their first Challenge golds in late 2024 in back-to-back tournaments in Chennai and Nuvali. They added more hardware in both the Challenge and the Elite categories in 2025, bringing their total number of Beach Pro Tour medals to nine, six of which gold, and reaching number two in the World Ranking. Their season peaked when they shined at Adelaide 2025 to reach the all-Swedish World Championship final and stop just short of beating their mighty compatriots for the title.
Of course, there are plenty of other high-caliber teams set to hit the Tlaxcala sand this week. Among them are Australian Olympians Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher, Argentina’s Tomas Capogrosso & Nicolas Capogrosso, Portugal’s Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos, Switzerland’s Marco Krattiger & Leo Dillier and Germany’s Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter, to name a few. The stellar presence is boosted by the likes of Austria’s Alexander Horst, Poland’s Piotr Kantor, Netherlands’ Matthew Immers, Austria’s Julian Horl and many others.
The Tlaxcala Challenge tournament will be conducted with a 32-team main draw in each gender. It starts on Wednesday with the qualification rounds with eight teams advancing to the main draw and joining the 24 directly seeded. The main draw begins on Thursday with modified pool play, with eight pools of four teams each, playing two pool semifinals, a losers’ match and a winners’ match to determine the final standings. The teams that finish third in the pools will take on the runners-up of other pools in the sixteenthfinal single elimination round, the winners of which will move to the eighthfinal round, where they will challenge the eight pool winners. Quarterfinals, semifinals and medal matches will follow to determine the final standings.
Tlaxcala Challenge men’s action will get underway on Wednesday with the qualifiers serving off at 09:00 local time (15:00 UTC).
