Newly-crowned world champions Anders Mol, Christian Sorum, Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Ana Patricia Ramos will take a well-deserved break after taking their place on the top step of the podium on Sunday in Rome. They will be back in action at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Gstaad, Switzerland, from July 6-10.

The world champions from Norway and Brazil are among the attractions of this year’s edition of the tournament held in the Swiss Alps. Gstaad has a long tradition of hosting international beach volleyball events, having done so every year since 2001, except 2020, when the calendar was put on pause due to the global pandemic.

· Watch all matches at the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Gstaad live on Volleyball TV.

The Gstaad tournament will feature a special format, including 32 teams per gender in the main draw. Half of the 96 teams that competed at the World Championships in Rome (26 men’s and 22 women’s) are entered to play in Gstaad too, including all three medallist teams in each gender.

Gstaad Elite16 – Entry Lists

Also the winners of the FIVB World Tour events held in Gstaad in 2018 and 2019, Mol and Sorum are in Pool B in this year’s tournament and will have to wait a few more days to find out who their opening-match opponents will be - one of the Swiss duos that are awarded wild cards for the tournament.

Duda and Ana Patricia, who are in Pool E in the women’s tournament, will debut against Finland’s Taru Lahti and Niina Ahtiainen, who also competed this week in Rome and finished 17th. Duda and Ana Patricia met in last year’s gold medal match in Gstaad, with their former partners. At the time, Duda was playing with Agatha Bednarczuk and Ana Patricia with Rebecca Cavalcanti.

Some interesting encounters are set to take place on the very first day of the tournament in Gstaad, including some World Championship rematches. One of them will reunite Rome bronze medallists Andre Loyola/George Wanderley and Latvians Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins in Pool E. The teams also met in pool play at the Foro Italico, with the Brazilians winning in straight sets.

In the same pool, Rome silver medallists Vitor Felipe and Renato Lima are also set for a difficult opening match in Gstaad as the Brazilians will clash with Italians Adrian Carambula and Enrico Rossi.

The Pool G opener will also be one to watch as it will oppose former longtime partners Bartosz Losiak and Piotr Kantor. The Polish players were partners between 2009 and 2021, and represented their country at the last two Olympics. Losiak has joined forces with Michal Bryl for the 2022 season, while Kantor is now partnering with Maciej Rudol. It will be their first meeting after switching from partners to opponents.

In the women’s tournament, reigning European champions and local favourites Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli will start their participation in their home tournament against Brazilian veterans Maria Elisa Antonelli and Fernanda Berti.

Canadians Brandie Wilkerson and Sophie Bukovec, who took silver in Rome, will debut against Germans Sandra Ittlinger and Sandra Schneider in Pool C, while Germans Cinja Tillmann and Svenja Muller, who won bronze at the World Championships, will play Americans Emily Stockman and Megan Kraft in Pool G.

Quick links:

Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour

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