As the men’s eighthfinals took shape at the Yucatan Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour on Friday, as many as four teams emerging from the qualifiers on Wednesday – Italy’s Manuel Alfieri & Alex Ranghieri, Brazil’s Adelmo Folha & Mateus Dultra and Pedro Oliveira & Renato Lima, and Switzerland’s Yves Haussener & Julian Friedli – made their way to the last 16 of the tournament in Mexico.
Beach Pro Tour
Four men’s teams make way from qualifiers to eighthfinals in Yucatan
Alfieri & Ranghieri, Adelmo & Mateus, Haussener & Friedli and Pedro & Renato among the last 16 in Mexico
Published 06:04, 22 Mar 2025
Brazil’s Renato Lima
- Watch the Yucatan Challenge on VBTV.
Among the four, Alfieri & Ranghieri were the only one who didn’t win their pool and had to go through the sixteenthfinal elimination round. Seeded 31st in the 32-team main draw, the Italian pair started the day with a 2-1 (21-12, 16-21, 15-12) win over Argentina’s Juan Amieva & Maciel Bueno in the losers’ match of Pool B and advanced to the knockouts as the third-placed team in their pool. In the sixteenthfinals, Alfieri & Ranghieri survived another three-setter, this time coming back from a set down against Canada’s Samuel Schachter & Jonathan Pickett to celebrate a 2-1 (10-21, 21-16, 15-12) victory. Next, the Italians will take on top-seeded Noslen Diaz & Jorge Alayo for a spot in Saturday’s quarterfinals. The Cubans got there with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) sweep of Friday’s Pool A final against Austria’s Christoph Dressler & Philipp Waller.
30th-seeded Adelmo & Mateus had a three-set battle with Latvia’s Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics to claim a 2-1 (21-17, 18-21, 15-9) victory and top the final Pool C standings. In Saturday’s eighthfinals, the Brazilians will meet fourth-seeded Ruben Penninga & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands, who bounced back from their three-set loss, 2-1 (21-16, 19-21, 15-9), to France’s Remi Bassereau & Calvin Aye in the Pool D final with a 2-1 (22-24, 21-16, 15-10) sixteenthfinal victory over Austria’s Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger.
Swiss qualifiers Haussener & Friedli, seeded 26th in the main draw, produced a 2-1 (19-21, 22-20, 15-12) comeback against Portugal’s Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos to top the standings in Pool G. Their next opponents, Germany’s Philipp Huster & Maximilian Just, finished third in Pool A and went on to deliver a 2-1 (16-21, 21-13, 15-11) sixteenthfinal turnaround against Bedritis & Rinkevics.
25th-seeded Pedro & Renato had a tough Pool H final against Jacob Holting Nilsson & Elmer Andersson, but put an end to the rising Swedish stars’ 17-game winning streak that started in the last events of the 2024 Beach Pro Tour. After two extended sets, the Brazilians took a 2-0 (22-20, 23-21) victory and jumped straight to the eighthfinals, where they will face Pedrosa & Campos, who got back on the winning track with a 2-0 (21-12, 22-20) win of their sixteenthfinal against Germany’s Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter.
Holting Nilsson & Andersson, on the other hand, bounced back with a 2-1 (21-18, 17-21, 21-19) victory over another German duo, Lukas Pfretzschner & Sven Winter and will play against sixth-seeded Miles Evans & Chase Budinger for a berth in the quarterfinals. The American Olympians topped Pool F with a tight 2-0 (22-20, 21-17) sweep of the winners’ match against Schachter & Pickett.
The eighthfinals will also offer a high-caliber clash between reigning world champions Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner, seeded fifth, and third-seeded Italians Samuele Cottafava & Gianluca Dal Corso. The Czech pair won Pool E after a 2-0 (21-15, 23-21) shutout of Brazil’s Vitor Felipe & Gustavo Carvalhaes (Guto), while Cottafava & Dal Corso first survived in the tournament with a nail-biting tie-breaker win over another Czech team, Jakub Sepka & Jiri Sedlak, for the third place in Pool C, 2-1 (21-18, 17-21, 26-24), and then managed a 2-1 (17-21, 21-14, 15-9) turnaround in the sixteenthfinal against USA’s Chaim Schalk & James Shaw.
An all-French eighthfinal will set Pool D winners Bassereau & Aye against Teo Rotar & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, who finished third in Pool H and achieved a 2-1 (21-12, 24-26, 15-13) victory over Vitor Felipe & Guto in the first knockout round.
Second-seeded Marco Grimalt & Esteban Grimalt emerged on top of the Pool B standings after a 2-1 (11-21, 21-18, 15-13) comeback against Schalk & Shaw. The Chilean cousins will next meet Pool A runners-up Dressler & Waller, who managed a tight 2-0 (25-23, 21-19) sixteenthfinal win over Swiss qualifiers Adrian Heidrich & Jonathan Jordan.
Saturday’s men’s eighthfinal round will serve off at 09:00 local time (15:00 UTC). The quarterfinals will also be played later in the day.
