2023 world champion and two-time Olympian Ondrej Perusic is set to grace the courts in Gstaad – for the first time in a team with Matyas Dzavoronok, a 24-year-old athlete, who has already collected six Beach Pro Tour medals with various partners, including a silver at the Challenge level, in Bhubaneswar earlier this year, alongside Jakub Sepka. The latter partnered with Perusic at the successful Ostrava Elite about a month ago. With his former partner David Schweiner, Perusic finished runners-up in Gstaad back in 2022.
Perusic & Dzavoronok are seeded 10th in the Gstaad main draw and will start their campaign in Pool C on Wednesday afternoon against trending Israelis Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov. The number one team in the FIVB World Ranking – Sweden’s Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson – are also in that pool. The silver medalists of the 2025 FIVB World Championship and of the 2025 Gstaad Elite are awaiting their first opponents, who will emerge from Wednesday morning’s qualifiers.
Reigning world and Olympic champions David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden, also Gstaad champions in 2024, will lead the main draw bracket, starting off against qualifiers in Pool A. The pool also features Austria’s Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger and Argentina’s Tomas Capogrosso & Nicolas Capogrosso.
Pool B is headlined by 41-year-old three-time Olympian and London 2012 bronze medalist Martins Plavins and 21-year-old two-time age-group world champion Kristians Fokerots of Latvia. They have already earned two Elite bronze medals on the 2026 Beach Pro Tour so far. Former world champions and two-time Gstaad medalist Andre Stein and his teammate Renato Lima of Brazil will be among the contenders in the pool. So will Italy’s Samuele Cottafava & Gianluca Dal Corso.
Adelaide 2025 World Championship bronze medalists Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat of France are seeded fourth in Gstaad and will play in Pool D, where they will have games against a team from the qualifiers, Switzerland’s Julian Friedli & Jonathan Jordan and Brazil’s Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano Lanci. Former world champion Evandro has two medals from Gstaad, including the 2016 gold.
Another French duo – Remi Bassereau Daubas & Calvin Aye – will lead Pool E. Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer, a Rio 2016 Olympic bronze medalist and a 2013 world champion, who earned his first of two Gstaad podiums way back, 11 years ago, in 2015, will also compete in this pool alongside current partner Stefan Boermans, who also has two medals from this venue – gold in 2021 and bronze last year. Both teams will meet qualifiers in their opening pool matches.
