The Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour is set to visit a new location this week, with the Austrian capital Vienna hosting an Elite16 tournament from Tuesday to Sunday and welcoming the event for the first time after staging the 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship and FIVB World Tour stops in the two following years.

• Watch the Beach Pro Tour Vienna Elite16 matches live on VBTV

The return of international beach volleyball to Vienna will happen on a special occasion as teams from around the world finalize their preparations for the Paris Olympics and 27 of the 48 duos qualified to compete in the Games decided to do it in the tournament held at the Heumarkt, which will be the last one before the main event of the year.

Of the 24 women’s teams that will compete in Paris starting on July 27, 11 will be in Vienna this week. Four of them – Germany’s Laura Ludwig/Louisa Lippmann, Czechia’s Barbora Hermannová/Marie-Sára Štochlova, Spain’s Liliana Fernández/Paula Soria and Lithuania’s Monika Paulikiene/Aine Raupelyte – will play on Tuesday’s qualifier.

Vienna Elite16 – Women’s Entry List

Starting in the main draw will be Latvia’s Tina Graudina/Anastasija Samoilova, Italy’s Marta Menegatti/Valentina Gottardi, China’s Chen Xue/Xinyi Xia, Germany’s Cinja Tillmann/Svenja Müller, Spain’s Daniela Álvarez/Tania Moreno, Australia’s Taliqua Clancy/Mariafe Artacho and Switzerland’s Esmée Böbner/Zoé Vergé-Dépré.

The men’s tournament in Vienna will be particularly strong as 16 of the 24 men’s teams that will compete in Paris are entered to play in Austria this week. The first of them to get on the court will be Australia’s Thomas Hodges/Zachery Schubert and Mark Nicolaidis/Izac Carracher, France’s Youssef Krou/Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, Italy's Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri and Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrián Gavira, who will play in the qualifier, on Wednesday.

Vienna Elite16 – Men’s Entry List

All but one of the 12 teams guaranteed in the main draw will play in Paris – Brazil’s Andre Loyola/George Wanderley, Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum, Germany’s Nils Ehlers/Clemens Wickler, the Netherlands’ Matthew Immers/Steven van de Velde and Stefan Boermans/Yorick de Groot, USA’s Andy Benesh/Miles Partain, Chile’s Marco Grimalt/Esteban Grimalt, Italy’s Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava, Poland’s Michal Bryl/Bartosz Łosiak, Qatar’s Cherif Younousse/Ahmed Tijan and Austria’s Julian Hörl/Alexander Horst.

Olympic duel to take place in Vienna

At least one duel that’s confirmed to happen in Paris during the Olympics will take place in Vienna first as Evandro/Arthur and Hörl/Horst, who are in the same pool at the Games, are both in Pool D in the Austrian tournament and will meet on Thursday at 11:30 local time (9:30 GMT).

Vienna Elite16 – Match Schedule

The women’s tournament will have the qualifier on Tuesday, with pool play matches going on between Wednesday and Thursday. The Round of 12 and the quarterfinals are scheduled for Friday, with the semifinals and medal matches taking place on Saturday. The men’s event will follow a similar schedule, but starting on Wednesday and ending on Sunday.

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