The fifth Elite16 stop on the inaugural Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour begins on Wednesday, with the top teams in the world at the Rothenbaum stadium in Hamburg this week. Wednesday's qualifiers will be followed by main draw action on Thursday, featuring the best 16 teams per gender. The matches for gold, silver and bronze will take place on Sunday.
Hamburg, Germany
Hamburg Elite16 begins on Wednesday!
Look out for these highlights on the first two competition days
Published 07:00, 09 Aug 2022
German pair Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler will be a team to watch
· The Hamburg qualifiers will be streamed live on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel. All main draw matches will be live on Volleyball TV.
Wednesday’s qualifiers will begin at 08:00 local time (06:00 GMT) with the women’s first round, followed by the men’s first round scheduled to start at 11:20 local time (09:20 GMT). The key matches of the second round will get underway at 15:00 (13:00) for the women and at 17:00 (15:00) for the men. Four teams per gender will join the 12 already seeded in the main draw, to get the pool stage going on Thursday.
The women's qualification seeding is led by USA's Sarah Sponcil and Terese Cannon, Italy's Marta Menegatti and Valentina Gottardi, USA's Emily Stockman and Megan Kraft, and Thailand's Taravadee Naraphornrapat and Worapeerachayakorn Kongphopsarutawadee. On the men’s side, Austria's Robin Seidl and Philipp Waller, Spain's Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira, Poland's Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak, and Sweden's David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig headline the qualification bracket.
The ladies will also get Thursday’s main draw action started at 08:00 local time (06:00 GMT) with a Pool B clash between Brazil’s Talita Antunes/Rebecca Cavalcanti and USA’s Kelly Cheng/Betsi Flint opening the centre court for business. In other exciting matches of the first leg of women’s pool play, Brazil’s Barbara Seixas/Carol Solberg will take on Germany’s Karla Borger/Julia Sude in Pool C at 11:00 (09:00), Canada’s Sarah Pavan/Melissa Humana-Paredes will meet another German duo, Sandra Ittlinger/Isabel Schneider, in Pool D at 12:00 (10:00), and the leading German pair, top-seeded Cinja Tillmann/Svenja Muller will face Latvia’s Anastasija Kravcenoka/Tina Graudina in Pool A at 13:00 (11:00).
The evening session of the women’s tournament will feature the second-leg matches in Pools A and D, with an-all Canadian clash between former world champions Pavan and Melissa and their compatriots and 2022 World Championship silver medallists Brandie Wilkerson and Sophie Bukovec, and a duel between Tillmann and Muller and European champions Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli of Switzerland highlighting the centre court programme.
The men’s first main draw competition day will begin at 09:00 local time (07:00 GMT) and will also feature 12 matches – the first round in all four pools and the second in Pools B and C. Czechia’s Ondrej Perusic/David Schweiner will get the action started with a Pool C game against Italy’s Adrian Carambula/Enrico Rossi, and meet Estonia’s Kusti Nolvak/Mart Tiisaar later in the day. The Pool B programme will be highlighted by Brazilian world ranking leaders Andre Loyola Stein/George Wanderley’s matches against Dutch duo Christiaan Varenhorst/Steven van de Velde and Italian pair Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava.
Top-seeded world and Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway will open Pool A with a head-to-head encounter with mighty Dutchmen Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen at 14:00 local time (12:00 GMT). Pool D will be the last to get underway, with home pair Clemens Wickler and Nils Ehlers taking on World Championship silver medallists Renato Lima and Vitor Felipe of Brazil on centre court at 17:00 (15:00).
Once the pool stage is completed on Friday, the winners and the runners-up of the four round-robin pools per gender will advance to Saturday’s knockout stage (quarterfinals and semifinals) of the tournament, which will determine the participants in Sunday’s medal matches for bronze and for gold.
