A Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event circled in the calendar of every player for its unmatched tradition and unique scenario, the Gstaad Elite16 kicks off on Wednesday at the Swiss Alps and fans from around the world can expect a week full of exciting battles.

With 56 teams from 23 countries and four continents set to compete for the USD 300,000 prize purse at the Swiss Alps this week, the Gstaad Elite16 will present some duels that can have huge implications in the race for qualification to the Paris 2024 Olympics.

• Watch the Beach Pro Tour Gstaad Elite16 live on VBTV

The first day of the main draw, Thursday will bring a long list of eye-catching encounters in the pool play phase. One of them will involve the winners of the 2022 Gstaad Elite16, Brazilians Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Ana Patricia Ramos, who will face their compatriots and former partners Ágatha Bednarczuk and Rebecca Cavalcanti for the first time in an international event – the duos battled in a Brazilian Tour stop back in March and the world champions triumphed in two sets.

The home team of Tanja Hüberli and Nina Brunner is also set to a complicated debut against Brazilian veterans Bárbara Seixas and Carol Salgado. The Brazilians are ranked third in the FIVB Women’s Beach Volleyball World Ranking, while the Swiss are eighth, but the Europeans won the last three encounters between the teams.

Another match to watch in the women’s event will be the one reuniting Australians Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho and Canadians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson as all four players have Olympic appearances and World Championship medals to their names. The Australians are currently the second team in the World Rankings, but the recently-reunited Canadians are fresh from a strong victory at the Jurmala Challenge two weeks ago.

The men’s tournament will have a lighter start, with only one match per team taking place on Thursday, but some exciting duels are already set. One of them will involve Tokyo Olympic bronze medallists Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar and American up-and-comers Andy Benesh and Miles Partain. The Asians returned to the Beach Pro Tour in great form after a two-month break at the Ostrava Elite16, where they took silver after they overcame the Americans in the semifinals.

One of the most intense and exciting rivalries in men’s beach volleyball, the clash between Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum and the Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen will have another chapter in Gstaad on Thursday. The teams have met as many as 18 times since 2018, including in the final in the Swiss Alps in 2019, with the reigning Olympic and world champions winning ten of these matches.

Beach Pro Tour Gstaad Elite16 – Match Schedule

Before the start of the main draw, the qualifier will take place in Gstaad on Wednesday, featuring 16 teams in each gender – four men’s and four women’s duos will advance and complete the main draw lineup.

Some of the top teams set to compete in the qualifier will be Italy’s Marta Menegatti/Valentina Gottardi, Germany’s Cinja Tillmann/Svenja Müller and Latvia’s Tina Graudina/Anastasija Samoilova on the women’s side and Chile’s Marco Grimalt/Esteban Grimalt, Brazil’s Evandro Gonçalves/Arthur Lanci and Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira among the men.

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