For the first time in their beach volleyball team’s journey, Germany’s Svenja Muller & Cinja Tillmann climbed to number two in the women’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking. This week’s update of the ranking also placed Switzerland’s Tanja Huberli & Nina Brunner in position three. They have not been this high up the chart since May 2022. Meanwhile, the reigning world champions in both genders suffered sharp drops.

As there were no major beach volleyball events last week to affect the high ends of the charts, the new shifts up and down the World Rankings were affected mostly by the expiration of the points earned a year ago at the Paris Elite16 on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour.

FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking – Women

Svenja Muller & Cinja Tillmann had earned 600 points with their ninth place finish at the Roland Garros stadium last year, but that was not among their top eight results within the last 365 days, counting towards their ranking score. So they kept the entire 6,940 points they had last week, but now this was enough for the second place in the ranking. Muller & Tillmann were in sixth place after the previous update, but the four teams above them suffered net losses and dropped down the chart. The German pair has never been this high in the World Ranking. Their previous high was the third place, where they last were back in July 2022.

The world’s number one team, Paris 2024 Olympic champions Ana Patricia Ramos & Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda), who topped the Paris Elite16 podium last year as well, also had their score seriously reduced and now they are just 400 points above Muller & Tillmann, which means that after the upcoming expiration of last October’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship points, we could have a new world leader, as the Brazilian duo has as many as another 1,440 points from Tlaxcala to lose.

Just 40 points below the Germans, Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medallists Tanja Huberli & Nina Brunner are the new number three team in the women’s ranking. Their score suffered a net loss of 140 points, but they still climbed a spot up from their fourth place last week. The last time the Swiss team was among the top three in the World Ranking was back in May 2022.

USA’s Kristen Nuss & Taryn Kloth, runners-up at Roland Garros last year, descended two spots, from number two to number four, while third-placed Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands fell from number three to number six. Meanwhile, Olympic silver medallists Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson of Canada and reigning world champions Sara Hughes & Kelly Cheng of the United States, who reached the 2023 Paris Elite16 quarterfinal, have now both dropped out of the top 10 in the World Ranking, to number 14 and number 15, respectively.

FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking – Men

While no sharp rises were observed in the update of the men’s World Ranking, the sharp decline of reigning world champions Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner is worth noting. The Czech duo, which won the Paris 2024 Elite16 before heading to Mexico for the 2023 World Championship, lost a net of 800 points and plummeted from fifth to 10^th place, which they are now sharing with Cuba’s Noslen Diaz & Jorge Alayo.

At the same time, Steven van de Velde & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands, whose ranking score was not affected, rose two spots to number five in the chart, the highest they have ever been.

There has been no change in the order of the top four in the men’s ranking since right after the Hamburg Elite16 in August: Sweden’s David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig, Netherlands’ Stefan Boermans & Yorick de Groot, Germany’s Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler and Brazil’s George Wanderley & Andre Stein.

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