Paris 2024 Olympian Samuele Cottafava and his current partner Gianluca Dal Corso top the Nayarit Challenge men’s lineup on entry points. It will be the Italian pair’s first Beach Pro Tour appearance of the season. The last time they travelled to Mexico, they finished fourth at the Veracruz Challenge in October.
The stellar presence in Nayarit will be highlighted by Austrian standout Alexander Horst. The 43-year-old veteran, a 2017 FIVB World Championship silver medalist and a four-time Olympian, will compete in Mexico alongside his current partner Paul Pascariuc. Horst’s previous teammate – Paris 2024 Olympian Julian Horl – will also play in Nayarit with his current partner Laurenc Grossig. They finished fifth last week in Tlaxcala.
Another three players, who have made it to the Olympic Games, are set to shine in the men’s main draw this week with their current teammates. Poland’s Piotr Kantor, who played at Rio de Janeiro 2016 and at Tokyo 2020, will hit the Mexican sand alongside Filip Lejawa, while Matthew Immers of the Netherlands and Thomas Hodges of Australia, who competed at Paris 2024, will take to the Nayarit Challenge with Leon Luini and Ben Hood, respectively.
Two of the teams that made the podium last week in Tlaxcala will also be back for more Mexican hardware in Nayarit – silver medalists Nicolas Capogrosso & Tomas Capogrosso of Argentina and bronze medalists Timothy Brewster & Logan Webber of the United States.
The Nayarit Challenge tournament will be conducted with a 32-team main draw in each gender. It starts on Wednesday with five qualification matches to fill up the available main draw vacancies. The main draw begins on Thursday 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 pool 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 tournament standings.
Nayarit Challenge men’s action on Wednesday is set to serve off at 10:00 local time (16:00 UTC).
