Mexican home favorites to challenge top seeds in Nayarit Challenge eighthfinals

The men’s main draw action at the Nayarit Challenge on the 2026 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour unfolded in full swing on Friday – the second leg of pool play and the sixteenthfinal elimination round were held – to shape the match-ups for Saturday’s eighthfinals, in which the eight pool winners will be challenged by teams that pushed through the first knockouts. In one of the most exciting eighthfinal duels that shaped up, at least for the home crowd in Mexico, home favorites Antonio Lares & Carlos Andres Ayala, in the role of pool winners, will take on the top-seeded team of the tournament, Italy’s Samuele Cottafava & Gianluca Dal Corso, who pushed through as pool runners-up.

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Eighth-seeded Mexicans Lares & Carlos Andres topped their Pool H after a 2-0 (22-20, 21-15) victory over last week’s Tlaxcala Challenge bronze medalists Timothy Brewster & Logan Webber of the United States and advanced straight to the eighthfinals. Lares led the team with 18 points, including four kill blocks and three aces. The home team now faces a tough challenge in bracket leaders Cottafava & Dal Corso for a spot in the quarterfinals. The Italians suffered a 2-1 (14-21, 21-19, 15-13) upset at the hands of Germany’s Maximilian Just & Lui Wust in the Pool A final (with a match-high 28 points from Wust, including six blocks and four aces), but then recovered with a 2-0 (21-13, 21-15) sweep of their sixteenthfinal against Norway’s Nils Gunnar Ringoen & Even Stray Aas.

Pool A winners Just & Wust will face Austria’s Alexander Horst & Paul Pascariuc in the second knockout round, while another two German teams will go head to head in another eighthfinal fixture on Saturday. 13^th-seeded Philipp Huster & Sven Winter, who emerged as winners of the Pool D final after their opponents, fourth-seeded Czechs Matyas Dzavoronok & Jakub Sepka, forfeited the match during the second set due to an injury, will lock horns with fourth-seeded compatriots Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter, who finished Pool E runners-up and went on to earn a hard-fought 2-0 (21-15, 30-28) win over Paraguay’s Gonzalo Melgarejo & Giuliano Massare.

Gabriel Zuliani & Joao Mares were the lowest seeded team to make the eighthfinals. Seeded 31^st in the 32-team main draw, the Brazilian qualifiers upset Poland’s Piotr Kantor & Filip Lejawa in the Pool B third-place match with a 2-0 (21-15, 21-15) shutout and went on to achieve a 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 15-10) victory over Slovakia’s Lubos Nemec & Adrian Petruf in the only three-setter of the sixteenthfinal round. Joao Mares contributed an impressive nine kill blocks to that win. Zuliani & Joao Mares will take on third-seeded Julian Friedli & Jonathan Jordan of Switzerland in a battle for the quarterfinal berths. The Swiss had a tough Pool C final against Latvia’s Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics, which they won with a 2-1 (17-21, 21-18, 15-12) turnaround.

Another pair of Brazilians, 27^th-seeded Gabriel Dos Reis & Johann Dohmann, who also came in from the qualification matches, progressed to the eighthfinals as well. They knocked out Mexico’s Jorman Osuna & Miguel Sarabia with a 2-0 (21-14, 21-15) shutout of the Pool F third-place match and followed up with a 2-0 (21-15, 21-18) upset of Americans Brewster & Webber in the first elimination round with seven kill blocks from Johann. Gabriel & Johann are set to meet the Pool G winners, seventh-seeded Israelis Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov, in the eighthfinals.

Saturday’s eighthfinal program will also offer a duel between fifth-seeded Juan Amieva & Maciel Bueno of Argentina and sixth-seeded Leon Luini & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands, an encounter between another Argentinean duo, the second seeded brothers Tomas Capogrosso & Nicolas Capogrosso, and 19^th-seeded Latvians Bedritis & Rinkevics, as well as a match between 11^th-seeded Austrians Christoph Dressler & Mathias Seiser and 21^st-seeded Australians Thomas Hodges & Ben Hood.

Men’s action in Nayarit will resume on Saturday at 09:00 local time (15:00 UTC). After the eighthfinal round, the quarterfinals will also be played on the penultimate competition day.

Beach Pro Tour Nayarit Challenge: schedule and results

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