Poland’s Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak are the new number two team in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking after winning the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 in Hamburg. In the women's competition, Hamburg gold medallists Kelly Cheng and Betsi Flint of the United States made it into the top 30 for the first time since the beginning of their partnership.
Beach Pro Tour 2022
Hamburg winners Bryl & Losiak up to number two in World Ranking
Cheng & Flint in the top 30 for the first time
Published 05:51, 16 Aug 2022
Bryl & Losiak celebrate winning the Hamburg final
The 600 World Ranking points won alongside Sunday’s gold medal improved Bryl and Losiak’s tally to 6,060. They are now exactly 600 points below ranking leaders Andre Loyola Stein and George Wanderley. It is the first time the Polish pair, formed right after last year’s Olympic Games, are ranked as high. Their previous best position in the chart was a sixth place they held during the first week of June.
This week’s top three is completed by Hamburg silver medallists Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands (up from number six), who earned 550 points for a total of 5,890, or 170 points more than the team previously ranked number two, Renato Lima and Vitor Felipe of Brazil, who won silver at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship Rome 2022. In early May, Brouwer and Meeuwsen spent a week at the top of the ranking.
Meanwhile, Hamburg bronze medallists Clemens Wickler and Nils Ehlers of Germany added 500 points to their record to climb nine spots up to number 23 on a new total of 4,020, while the other semifinalists, Stefan Boermans and Matthew Immers of the Netherlands jumped from rank 41 to 27 on a 3,410-point total.
Hamburg quarterfinalists Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava of Italy remained in fifth place. The other three teams with a fifth-place finish moved up in the ranking – Czechia’s Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner from seventh to sixth, Netherlands’ Leon Luini and Ruben Penninga from 19th to 13th, and Spain’s Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira from 21st to 17th. Despite not advancing past the pool stage in Hamburg, Estonia’s Kusti Nolvak and Mart Tiisaar also shifted up a spot to rejoin the top 10 of the World Ranking.
Cheng and Flint, who won their first gold at their fourth appearance on the Beach Pro Tour, have collected a total 3,340 points, enough to rank 30th in the world. Their opponents in the Hamburg final, Switzerland’s Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli, who had lost their place among the top 10 for a week, are back in position seven on a new total of 5,070 points, just below Germany’s Karla Borger and Julia Sude, who took Hamburg bronze to shift two spots up to number six on 5,220.
Ranking leaders Barbara Seixas and Carol Solberg of Brazil finished fourth in Germany last week and kept their number one position on a new total of 6,860 points, widening the gap between them and Hamburg quarterfinalists Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands to 460. The ranking remained the same in the next three positions too, with Australia’s Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho Del Solar in third, world champions Eduarda Santos Lisboa and Ana Patricia Ramos of Brazil in fourth and Germany’s Cinja Tillmann and Svenja Muller in fifth.
The remaining three quarterfinalists in the women’s tournament all took upward leaps in the ranking, most significantly 20-year-old Spaniards Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno, who rocketed up 14 positions to number 38. Canada’s Brandie Wilkerson and Sophie Bukovec climbed from 22nd to 13th, while Germany’s Sandra Ittlinger and Isabel Schneider ascended from 14th to 11th.
