Brazilian Olympian George Wanderley, who earned bronze at the 2022 World Championship in Rome, and his current partner Saymon Barbosa will start their Veracruz campaign directly from Thursday’s main draw. They are aiming at their second Beach Pro Tour podium together, after claiming bronze at the Alanya Challenge in June. George & Saymon are fourth in seed points on the men’s entry list for the Veracruz Challenge.
Austria’s Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger top the list. Number 17 in the FIVB World Ranking, they are the highest ranked men’s team to hit the sand in Mexico this week. 21-year-old Hammarberg and 20-year-old Berger, who are silver medalists from the U21 World Championship two years ago, have picked up some Beach Pro Tour medals at the Futures level, but are still chasing their first Challenge-level podium. Over the last two weeks, the young Austrians managed to break through the qualifiers of the Elite events in Brazil and even reached the Joao Pessoa quarterfinals.
The top three on the list is completed by American Olympians Miles Evans & Chase Budinger, who haven’t medaled on the Tour since 2023, and Portugal’s Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos, who picked up bronze at the previous Challenge event in Mexico in March.
The list of 24 teams pre-seeded in the main draw also features three-time Olympians Marco Grimalt & Esteban Grimalt of Chile, as well as a number of other Olympians appearing with their current teammates, like Canada’s Samuel Schachter (with current partner Jonathan Pickett), USA’s Chaim Schalk (with James Shaw), Italy’s Alex Ranghieri (with Manuel Alfieri), Switzerland’s Adrian Heidrich (with Jonathan Jordan), Italy’s Enrico Rossi (with Marco Viscovich), Spain’s Adrian Gavira (with Alejandro Huerta), Italy’s Samuele Cottafava (with Gianluca Dal Corso) and Netherlands’ Matthew Immers (with Ruben Penninga).
A star-studded list of candidates to make the Veracruz main draw through Wednesday’s qualifications is highlighted by 42-year-old Austrian veteran, four-time Olympian and 2017 World Championship silver medalist Alexander Horst, who arrives in Mexico with his new teammate Moritz Pristauz for their second Beach Pro Tour appearance together, after the Hamburg Elite in August.
Australia’s Thomas Hodges is another Olympian, who will grace the courts at the Veracruz qualifiers, along with Paul Burnett.
The qualification line-up also features 2023 U21 world champions Kyan Vercauteren & Joppe Van Langendonck of Belgium, 2024 U19 world champions Szymon Pietraszek & Jakub Krzeminski of Poland, as well as the pairing of 2014 U17 world champion Florian Breer of Switzerland with Luc Fluckiger.
The Veracruz Challenge tournament will be conducted with a 32-team main draw in each gender. It starts with a qualification round with eight teams advancing to the main draw and joining the 24 directly seeded. The main draw begins 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 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 standings.
Veracruz Challenge men’s action will get underway with the qualifiers on Wednesday serving off at 12:00 local time (18:00 UTC).
