Uberlandia, Brazil - elite16 - Beach Pro Tour 2022 - News

CKU ITA-BRA 021

Vitor Felipe and Renato are the top-seeded team in the men's tournament

Hosts Brazil will be well represented at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 tournament in Uberlandia from November 9-13.

Ten teams from the South American nation (six women’s and four men’s) will feature among the 24 teams that will start the tournament directly in the main draw. An additional five duos (three women’s and two men’s) will compete in the qualifiers.

· Watch all matches at the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Uberlandia live on Volleyball TV. The qualifiers will also be available on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel.

It will be the first time that the city of Uberlandia, located just over 400 kms south of the country’s capital Brasilia, hosts an international beach volleyball event, after also staging the South American Tour Finals back in May. Brazil, however, has already welcomed a Beach Pro Tour event this year, with Itapema welcoming a Challenge tournament back in April.

The silver medallists of the 2022 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship, Vitor Felipe and Renato Lima top the men’s main draw entry list for the Uberlandia event. The two Brazilians will try to replicate the success of their campaign in Rome after fifth and ninth place finishes at Elite16 events in Gstaad, Switzerland, and Hamburg, Germany.

Brazil also have teams ranked third (Andre Loyola/George Wanderley), fourth (Bruno Schmidt/Saymon Barbosa) and 12th (Evandro Goncalves/Vinicius Freitas) in the main draw.

Reigning Olympic and world champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum are seeded second and will try to return to the top of the podium in Brazil after their victory at an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event in Itapema in 2019.

Several of the remaining men's teams hail from Europe, including Switzerland’s Marco Krattiger/Florian Breer, Norway’s Mathias Berntsen/Hendrik Mol and Austria’s Robin Seidl/Philipp Waller, Martin Ermacora/Moritz Pristauz and Julian Hörl/Alexander Horst. Also look out for Mexicans Juan Virgen and Miguel Sarabia.

On the women’s side, Brazil has four of the five highest-seeded duos, with reigning world champions Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Ana Patricia Ramos leading the way. The two will truly be playing at home as they live in Uberlandia and represent local club Praia Clube, where the tournament will be held. Duda and Ana Patricia won the South American Tour event at Praia in May and will attempt to do as well in front of their fans again.

The other Brazilian teams in the top five in Uberlandia are Barbara Seixas/Carol Salgado (seeded second), Andressa Cavalcanti/Vitoria Rodrigues (third) and Taiana Lima/Hegeile ‘Hege’ Santos (fifth). Ranked ninth and 12th respectively, Talita Antunes/Thamela Coradello and Taina Bigi/Victoria Lopes are also part of the main draw starting list.

7B07DCB1-3F60-4044-B62C-9B4792D2EBF5

Sponcil and Cannon are the only non-South American team in the top five

Seeded fourth, Americans Terese Cannon and Sarah Sponcil are the highest-ranked non-Brazilian team to have earned a place in the Uberlandia main draw. The five other international duos set to compete in the event are Japan’s Miki Ishii/Sayaka Mizoe, France’s Lézana Placette/Alexia Richard, Spain’s María Carro/Angela Lobato, Finland’s Taru Lahti-Liukkonen/Niina Ahtiainen and the USA's Megan Kraft/Emily Stockman.

The event in Uberlandia will feature duos from 20 countries and four different continents.