The two back-to-back Challenge tournaments in Dubai offered a great opportunity for many new or recently formed partnerships to make their mark on the Beach Pro Tour and gain ground in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking, but some of the more familiar pairs, already high in the charts, also took advantage to improve their positions. Swedish men’s duo David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig and Thai women’s team Worapeerachayakorn Kongphopsarutawadee and Taravadee Naraphornrapat closed the gap on the top 10, rising to number 12 and number 13 in their respective rankings.
Beach Pro Tour 2022
Swedes and Thais move up World Ranking
Recently formed teams make their mark
Published 09:30, 01 Nov 2022
Thailand’s Worapeerachayakorn & Naraphornrapat celebrate their Dubai bronze
Ahman and Hellvig, who took part in just one of the two tournaments in the UAE, but topped the podium with gold, claimed 800 points towards a new total of 4,940 and caught up with Italy’s Adrian Carambula and Enrico Rossi, to rank 12th, just 60 points short of the top 10.
Argentinean brothers Nicolas Capogrosso and Tomas Capogrosso, who lost the second Dubai tournament final to the Swedes after a ninth-place finish in the first, moved only three positions up, but just enough to join the top 30 on a total of 3,932 points.
Dubai 1 winners Miles Partain and Andrew Benesh of the United States, who stopped just short of making the Dubai 2 quarterfinals, made a gigantic upward leap of 90 spots to 68th place after only three Beach Pro Tour appearances. Fellow Americans Logan Webber and Evan Cory, who finished fourth in the first tournament, but did not make it past the pool stage in the second, made an even higher jump of 103 positions to number 90, while 36-year-old Paul Lotman, who teamed up with Taylor Crabb just for the trip to Dubai and made his Tour debut at Kite Beach, made it to the podium with bronze at the second event as he and Crabb stormed the ranking straight into number 98.
Brazil’s Arthur Mariano and Pedro Solberg, bronze medallists of the first tournament and quarterfinalists of the second, climbed from 87th to 49th, while Dubai 1 runners-up Sergiy Popov and Eduard Reznik ascended from 41st to 34th.
On the women’s side, Thailand’s leading pair Worapeerachayakorn and Naraphornrapat achieved their best Beach Pro Tour results yet, finishing fourth at Dubai 1 and third at Dubai 2. That brought in 1,400 points combined. Their new total of 4,760 places them in position 13, together with former world champions Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes of Canada, who are no longer playing together.
The winners of the first event, Czechia’s Barbora Hermannova and Marie-Sara Stochlova have now collected a total of 4,400 points, moving eight spots up to number 17, while the new tandem of experienced German players Isabel Schneider and Julia Sude, who won the second event after reaching the quarterfinals of the first, entered the World Ranking straight into position 85 on 1,400 points, together with American newcomers Katie Horton and Julia Scoles, who won one and lost one of the two bronze medal matches, both against the Thai duo.
Dubai 1 runners-up Zeng Jinjin and Wang Xinxin of China improved their rank by 16 spots, just enough to enter the top 30, while Dubai 2 silver medallists Molly Turner and Madelyne Anderson of the United States, who made their Challenge-level debut in the sands of Kite Beach, rose 65 positions to number 70.
There has been no movement within the top 10 of the charts, with Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum and Brazil’s Barbara Seixas and Carol Solberg retaining their status as the world’s number one teams for men and for women.
