It will be Hughes’s only second appearance on the Beach Pro Tour after her long injury-prompted absence, and second since October’s Newport Beach Elite, when her new team with Ally Batenhorst made its international debut. In January of last year, Hughes sustained an injury and had to undergo an Achilles tendon surgery, which pulled the brakes on her 2025 season. Her previous partner Kelly Cheng, with whom Sarah triumphed at the 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship in Mexico, moved on to new partners. In 2023, Hughes & Cheng were also the number two team in the women’s FIVB World Ranking for 21 straight weeks. Together, they picked up five golds, one silver and one bronze on the Beach Pro Tour, including the title at the 2022 Tour Finals. Eventually, they competed at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where they reached the quarterfinals.
The 31-year-old American defender has now teamed up with Ally Batenhorst, who gave up her indoor career, so that the newly formed duo could get off on a quest for Los Angeles 2028 Olympic qualification. 23-year-old Batenhorst was a rising star of Omaha Supernovas competing in USA’s Pro Volleyball Federation, but she had never played beach volleyball professionally.
Upon their debut in Newport Beach, Hughes & Batenhorst posted one win and two losses, which proved insufficient for advancing beyond the pool stage. They are seeded on top of the main draw bracket in Bhubaneswar and will get a bye in their first Pool A match. In their pool final, the American duo will face the winner of the match between Australia’s Kayla Mears & Tara Phillips and Ukraine’s Yeva Serdiuk & Sofiia Kurnikova.
Among the other pool leaders, who will similarly get through the first leg of the pol stage without playing are Asami Shiba & Reika Murakami and Ren Matsumoto & Non Matsumoto of Japan, Yan Xu & Xia Xinyi of China, Ana Vergara & Sofia Gonzalez of Spain, Annique Niederhauser & Menia Bentele of Switzerland, host nation India’s highest-ranked pair Sasikala Veerapathiran & Kanimozhi Lakshmanan, as well as the first Beach Pro Tour gold medalists for 2026 Beata Vaida & Francesca Alupei of Romania. The next two teams down the list, ninth-seeded Alexis Durish & Audrey Koenig of the United States and Stefania Kun & Lilla Villam of Hungary will also skip the first leg and move on directly to their pools’ final matches.
