The first Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event held in Africa will count on the reigning world champions in both genders as Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sørum and Brazilians Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Ana Patricia Ramos are set to compete in the tournament that will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, from November 3-6.
Cape Town, South Africa
World champions top Cape Town Elite16 entry lists
Mol/Sørum and Duda/Ana Patricia headline the teams that will compete for gold in South Africa
Published 05:37, 25 Oct 2022
Duda and Ana Patricia will chase their third international gold medals of the season
The Europeans and the South Americans top the 12-team lists that contain the duos in the main draw of the tournament with 16 other tandems in each gender set to start the event in the qualifier, which will have four main draw spots in play. As many as 24 different nations from five continents are represented among the 56 teams that appear in the entry lists of the tournament.
· Watch all matches at the Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 event in Cape Town live on Volleyball TV.
The event will mark the return of elite international beach volleyball to South Africa for the first time since December 2014, when Mangaung hosted a men-only FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event. Cape Town has staged three World Tour tournaments in the past, in 1995, 2004 and 2005, with the first two only reuniting male players and the most recent one welcoming teams from both genders.
Also the reigning Olympic champions, Mol, 25, and Sørum, 26, will compete on the African continent for the first time in their careers. The two have, however, visited South Africa at the end of 2021 on vacation.
The Beach Volley Vikings are enjoying a productive 2022 season so far as, besides winning their first world title in Rome, Italy, in June, they also triumphed in two of the six other Beach Pro Tour events they entered, earning gold in Elite16 tournaments in Ostrava, the Czech Republic, and Paris, France. If they secure the title in South Africa, they will have earned international gold medals on all five continents.
Trailing the Norwegians in the men’s entry list are two teams that won bronze medals at the Olympics – Dutch pair Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, who stepped on the podium in third place at the Rio 2016 Games, and Qataris Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan, who did the same last year in Tokyo.
The Netherlands have two other teams among the 12 guaranteed places in the main draw – Stefan Boermans/Matthew Immers and Leon Luini/Ruben Penninga – and tie Austria as the nation with the most duos on the list. The Austrian tandems are Julian Hörl/Alexander Horst, Robin Seidl/Philipp Waller and Martin Ermacora/Moritz Pristauz.
The men’s tournament will also feature the only player to have competed in the 2005 World Tour event in Cape Town to return 17 years later. That’s 39-year-old South African Olympian Grant Goldschmidt, a Cape Town native who made his international debut on the occasion and was granted a wild card for this year’s edition alongside Leo Williams.
Goldschmidt in action during a World Tour event in 2019
Italy’s Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava, Sweden’s David Åhman/Jonatan Hellvig and Norway’s Hendrik Mol/Mathias Berntsen complete the list of 12 men’s teams in the main draw in South Africa.
In the women’s tournament, Duda, 24, and Ana Patricia, 25, lead the way. Despite her young age, it won’t be the first time Duda plays in South Africa, as she appeared in a World Tour event held in Durban in 2013. Aged just 15 at the time, she finished fifth with Thais Rodrigues.
The Tokyo Olympians, who form one of Brazil’s two main draw teams in Cape Town alongside Elize Maia and Thamela Coradello, have also topped the podium at the Gstaad Elite16 and took bronze in Paris and Jurmala.
Right after Duda and Ana Patricia on the entry list are Dutch pair Raisa Schoon and Katja Stam, one of two European teams in the top five – the other is formed by Spanish up-and-comers Daniela Álvarez and Tania Moreno, who are ranked fifth.
The United States have three teams in the main draw – third-seeded Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss, fourth-seeded Corinne Quiggle/Sarah Schermerhorn and sixth-seeded Terese Cannon and Sarah Sponcil.
The event in Cape Town will mark the return to the sand of German star and Rio 2016 Olympic champion Laura Ludwig, who sat out of the entire season so far to give birth to her second son, Lenny. It will also be her first appearance with her new partner, former indoor star Louisa Lippmann. The two were given a wild card for the event.
Japan’s Miki Ishii/Sayaka Mizoe, France’s Lézana Placette/Alexia Richard, Spain’s María Carro/Angela Lobato and the Czech Republic's Barbora Hermannová/Marie-Sara Stochlova are the remaining women’s teams with a main draw spot guaranteed.
