The first high-level (Challenge or Elite) event on the 2025 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour in the Eastern Hemisphere is set to get underway on Wednesday, as China welcomes the Xiamen Challenge. It is the season’s second stop of that category, after Mexico’s Yucatan Challenge in March. Xiamen will host a Beach Pro Tour event for the second straight year and it will run from May 14 to May 18. The women’s competition, featuring plenty of high-caliber beach volleyball stars, will offer the fans the presence of many Olympians, highlighted by some Olympic medalists like Xue Chen and Taliqua Clancy.
Challenge - Xiamen, CHN - 2025
Olympic medalists highlight women’s line-up at Xiamen Challenge
The Beach Pro Tour event in China starts on Wednesday
Published 10:47, 13 May 2025
China’s Xue Chen
- Watch the Xiamen Challenge on VBTV
The home fans in China will get an opportunity to cheer on 36-year-old four-time Olympian and Beijing 2008 bronze medalist Xue Chen as she leads the women’s line-up in Xiamen, along with her Chinese teammate Zeng Jinjin, on entry points. It will be the pair’s first appearance on the Beach Pro Tour as such, after they won the Haikou Challenge in China back in November upon their team’s Tour debut.
Among the other four home duos pre-seeded directly among the 24 teams in the main draw, is the pairing of Xue’s previous partner, two-time Olympian Xia Xinyi, with Wang Jingzhe, ranked second on entry points. They have been the reigning Asian champions after defeating Xue & Zeng in November’s all-Chinese continental final at the Asian Championships in the Philippines.
Three-time Olympian and Tokyo 2020 silver medalist, 32-year-old Australian Taliqua Clancy, has been competing alongside Jana Milutinovic this year and is still hungry for her first Beach Pro Tour podium in the “post-Mariafe era”. They are also already pre-seeded in the Xiamen main draw, along with another two trending Australian duos - Elizabeth Alchin & Georgia Johnson and Jasmine Fleming & Stefanie Fejes.
Clemence Vieira & Aline Chamereau, one of the teams that represented France at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, are also set to play in the Xiamen main draw, while their compatriots and also Paris 2024 Olympians Lezana Placette & Alexia Richard headline the line-up for Wednesday’s qualifications.
The Xiamen main draw entry list features a number of other Olympians like Czechia’s Marie-Sara Stochlova, who is now on a team with Marketa Svozilova, Japan’s Miki Ishii, now competing alongside Saki Maruyama, and Spain’s Paula Soria, whose new partner is Belen Carro. Another Paris 2024 Olympian, Germany’s Louisa Lippmann, is also back in action. However, she and her new teammate Linda Bock will start their Xiamen campaign from the qualifiers.
Meanwhile, the current number 16 team in the world, Finland’s Taru Lahti-Liukkonen & Niina Ahtiainen, will be the highest ranked team at the upcoming tournament.
The list of the main draw 24 features as many as five American teams, all of whom with potential to join the battles for distribution of the medals. That group includes Jaden Whitmarsh & Devon Newberry, who took Challenge bronze in Yucatan a couple of months ago. Among other solid teams to watch in Xiamen are those of U21 world champions from 2021 Anhelina Khmil of Ukraine and from 2023 Brecht Piersma of the Netherlands, with Valentyna Davidova and Noa Sonneville, respectively, as well as many others, both in the main draw and in the qualifiers.
The Xiamen Challenge tournament will be conducted under the recently adopted new format, with a 32-team main draw per gender. It starts with two rounds of qualifiers with eight teams advancing to the main draw and joining the 24 directly seeded. The main draw begins with modified pool play, with eight pools of four teams each, playing two pool semifinals, a losers’ match and a winners’ match to determine the final standings. The teams that finish third in the pools will take on the runners-up of other pools in the sixteenthfinal single elimination round, the winners of which will move to the eighthfinal round, where they will challenge the eight pool winners. Quarterfinals, semifinals and medal matches will follow to determine the final standings.
Xiamen Challenge action will get underway with the women’s qualifiers on Wednesday morning at 09:00 local time (01:00 UTC).
