There are new leaders in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Rankings for both women and men. Latvia’s Tina Graudina & Anastasija Samoilova and Netherlands’ Stefan Boermans & Yorick de Groot climbed to the number one spots in the prestigious charts, as they updated on Monday, with the expiration of the 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship points stirring a serious reshuffle.
Beach Pro Tour
Tina & Anastasija and Boermans & De Groot climb to number one in World Rankings!
Expiration of World Championship points leads to major shake-ups in the charts
Published 08:20, 15 Oct 2024
Anastasija and Ana Patricia joust over the net at the Paris 2024 Olympics
The previous leaders of the women’s ranking, reigning Olympic champions Ana Patricia Ramos & Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) of Brazil, gave up the top of the chart after reigning supreme for almost two years - since November 7, 2022, or 101 consecutive weeks. Dropping 1,440 points from their second place at Mexico 2023, they not only lost the first place, but fell all the way down to number eight on a new total of 5,900 points.
Other teams, who did well at last year’s World Championship, also lost a lot of points and Tina & Anastasija were the pair who took advantage of the situation to rise to the number one spot for the first time along their beach volleyball journey. The Latvian duo gave up only 800 points, but most of them were replaced by their next eighth best score, 760 points from last year’s Joao Pessoa Elite16 quarterfinal on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, which resulted in a net loss of only 40 points. Thus, Tina & Anastasija sky-rocketed six positions up the chart to number one in the world on a total of 6,780 points.
Slightly below them, completing the new top three are Germany’s Svenja Muller & Cinja Tillmann with 6,740 points and Brazil’s Carol Solberg & Barbara Seixas with 6,680.
Meanwhile, reigning world champions Sara Hughes & Kelly Cheng of the United States are now all the way down to number 27 on 4,020 points from just five qualifying tournaments. Their compatriots Kristen Nuss & Taryn Kloth, Mexico 2023 bronze medallists, who were in number two until just three weeks ago, now also plummeted outside the top 10, in position 11 on 5,600 points from six qualifying appearances.
In addition to Tina & Anastasija, another team among the top 10 that registered a new high are Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk & Rebecca Cavalcanti. For the first time along their path as a pair, they are as high as number five in the World Ranking on 6,120 points, two spots up from the previous week. This means that Ana Patricia & Duda are now only the third-ranked Brazilian duo.
The situation is quite similar in the men’s World Ranking. Reigning Olympic champions and World Championship silver medallists David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden also gave up their leadership in the chart after staying at the top since April 22 of this year, or 25 weeks in a row. However, they are only down to number two on a new total of 7,100 points (from six qualifying tournaments), just 40 points below new leaders Boermans & De Groot, who suffered a net loss of only 360 of the 960 points they had earned at the World Championship.
It is not the first time for the Dutch pair to top the World Ranking. They were the world’s number one team for four consecutive weeks back in May 2022
Brazil’s George Wanderley & Andre Stein caught up with Germany’s Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler and the two teams now shared the number three spot on 6,980 points each, or just 120 points below Ahman & Hellvig.
World champions Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner of Czechia took a deep dive from number five three weeks ago, through number 10 over the last two weeks, all the way down to number 22 this week on 4,520 points from seven tournaments. Mexico 2023 bronze medallists Michal Bryl & Bartosz Losiak of Poland also dropped out of the top 10 and are now in 11th place on 5,400 points.
Among the current top 10 in the men’s ranking, new career highs were registered for Cuba’s Noslen Diaz & Jorge Alayo and for USA’s Miles Evans & Chase Budinger, who are now in positions eight and nine, respectively.
