It was Italy day in the Nuvali Challenge men’s competition on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. Three of the four Italian pairs in the main draw won all of their pool play matches, topped their pool standings and advanced straight to the eighthfinals, joining duos from Austria, Czechia, England, Israel and Spain. Another 16 teams, including the fourth Italian duo, finished second or third in their pools on Thursday and secured their spots in the sixteenthfinal round on Friday.

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Sixth-seeded Italians Manuel Alfieri & Alex Ranghieri probably had the roughest day among all pool winners in Santa Rosa. In each of their Pool F matches, they had to come back from a set down on the way to a tie-breaker victory. First, they claimed a 2-1 (19-21, 21-13, 15-9) win over New Zealand’s Bradley Fuller & Ben O'Dea, and then, they followed up with a tight 2-1 (18-21, 21-16, 16-14) comeback against France’s Elouan Chouikh-Barbez & Joadel Gardoque in the pool final. Austria’s Julian Horl & Laurenc Grossig also mounted a three-set comeback against the Kiwis to finish third in the pool and stay alive in the tournament.

Second-seeded Samuele Cottafava & Gianluca Dal Corso topped Pool B. The Italian duo started off with a 2-0 (21-13, 21-18) win over French qualifiers Keran Duval & Arthur Canet and backed it up with a 2-0 (21-14, 21-18) sweep of the pool final against American qualifiers Hagen Smith & Logan Webber. The third place in the pool went to Denmark’s Mads Mollgaard & Nicolai Houmann.

In Pool H, ninth-seeded Italians Enrico Rossi & Marco Viscovich also achieved two straight-set wins - 2-0 (21-12, 22-20) over USA’s Timothy Brewster & Ryan Ierna in the first leg, and 2-0 (21-18, 27-25) over Australian qualifiers D'Artagnan Potts & Jack Pearse for the first place. Brewster & Ierna bounced back to finish third in the pool and advance to the sixteenthfinals.

The biggest surprise arose from Pool C, where third-seeded Americans Robert Harrison & Cody Caldwell lost both their games and dropped out of the competition. 14^th-seeded Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov of Israel won that pool after a nail-biting 2-1 (12-21, 21-19, 17-15) comeback against Austria’s Moritz Pristauz & Alexander Horst in their first match and a 2-0 (24-22, 21-17) victory over Belgian qualifiers Kyan Vercauteren & Joppe Van Langendonck in the pool final.

The highest seeded duos in each of the other four pools lived up to their status and topped the standings to jump into the eighthfinals. In Pool A, top-seeded Austrians Christoph Dressler & Philipp Waller delivered a 2-0 (21-16, 21-16) sweep of their opener against German qualifiers Jonas Reinhardt & Robin Sowa and a hard-fought 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 19-17) comeback in the all-Austrian pool final against Robin Seidl & Alexander Huber. Australia’s Luke Ryan & Joshua Howat finished third in the pool to stay in contention.

Spain’s Alejandro Huerta & Adrian Gavira, seeded fourth, won Pool D. They started off with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) shutout of Lithuanian qualifiers Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics and wrapped it up with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-18) shutout of Indonesia’s Bintang Akbar & Sofyan Rachman Efendi in the pool winners match. Germany’s Maximilian Just & Philipp Huster were the third team to progress from this pool.

In Pool E, fifth-seeded Javier Bello & Joaquin Bello of England achieved two three-set victories to top the table. First, they put together a 2-1 (24-22, 18-21, 15-13) win over Brazilian qualifiers Gabriel Dos Reis Santiago & Felipe Alves Pereira, who eventually finished third and moved on to the sixteenthfinals. In the game for the first place, the English twins celebrated a 2-1 (21-14, 18-21, 15-11) win over Italy’s Tiziano Andreatta & Davide Benzi.

An epic tie-breaker decided the Pool G opener, with seventh-seeded Czechs Tadeas Trousil & Jiri Sedlak squeezing out a 2-1 (21-14, 19-21, 26-24) victory over Australian qualifiers Ben Hood & Oliver Merritt. The European team went on to top the pool after defeating another Australian opponent – Thomas Hodges & Paul Burnett – by 2-0 (21-14, 21-17). Hood & Merritt earned the pool’s third ticket to the knockouts.

Friday’s competition day in the men’s main draw will offer only the sixteenthfinals on its program and will serve off at 15:00 local time (07:00 UTC).

Beach Pro Tour Nuvali Challenge: schedule and results

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