Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson made it to the top three of the women’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking for the first time since the two Canadian stars joined forces as a team. Meanwhile USA’s Taryn Kloth & Kristen Nuss narrowed down the distance from Brazil’s Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) & Ana Patricia Ramos to just 20 points and they are the closest they have ever been to the number one spot in the chart. Two main factors affected the latest update of the World Rankings at the top end. One is the addition of last week’s Gstaad Elite16 results. The other one is the expiration of last year’s Gstaad Elite16 points.
In fact, Melissa & Brandie did not net any new points. They finished fifth at the Gstaad Elite16 both in 2023 and in 2024, so their World Ranking score of 7,400 points did not change. However, it was the previous number three, USA’s Sara Hughes & Kelly Cheng, who lost as many as 500 points, because they finished runners-up last year, but did not participate this year, which caused them to drop three positions down to number six.
The Netherlands’ Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon took advantage of this drop too. They also finished fifth last week and net-gained 160 points, with which they also surpassed fifth-placed Barbara Seixas & Carol Solberg of Brazil and climbed from sixth to fourth, just 20 points below Melissa & Brandie.
