Balıkesir hosts season-ending event this week

Another successful season of Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures events in Europe is about to be concluded, and the Turkish city of Balıkesir will be the last one to host a tournament in 2025 this week.

The last of the 25 events that happened between May and September will take place at the Ayvalik Sarismakli Plaji from Thursday to Sunday and will reunite duos from Europe and other continents.

The men’s tournament has 28 duos entered and 17 countries represented. Hosts Türkiye and Norway have four teams each, Hungary entered three, Austria, Kazakhstan and Latvia two, and Argentina, Bulgaria, Czechia, England, Greece, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United States one each.

Beach Pro Tour Balıkesir Futures – Men

Latvia’s Ardis Bedritis/Arturs Rinkevics, Austria’s Mathias Seiser/Laurenc Grössig and Czechia’s Tomas Semerad/Adam Stocek are the three top-seeded teams in the men’s tournament.

Hosts Türkiye will have all their four teams starting in the main draw - Yusuf Özdemir/Batuhan Kuru, Sacit Kurt/Ahmet Can Tür, Tuna Imdat/Barış Güldali and Nevzat Kaan Erol/Polat Kemal Eser.

The women’s event also has 28 teams, which come from 17 countries. Hosts Türkiye, Czechia and Lithuania have the most duos, with three each, followed by Austria, Chile, Japan, Kazakhstan and Switzerland with two and Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia and the United States with one.

Beach Pro Tour Balıkesir Futures – Women

Occupying the top three spots in the main draw are Chile’s Sofia Ohlsson/Karen Santander, Lithuania’s Ieva Dumbauskaite/Gerda Grudzinskaite and Valerie Dvorníková/Andrea Lorenzova.

Representing the host country in the main draw will be Merve Celebi/Nursel Yaren Sencel, Bahar Dogan/Su Simdim and Yasemin Yildirim/Irem Yener.

Thursday will be the first day of matches in Balıkesir, featuring the qualifiers for both genders. Main draw pool play will take place on Friday, with the elimination rounds happening on Saturday. The four best men’s and women’s teams will play the semifinals and medal matches on Sunday.

The Beach Pro Tour Futures events in Europe are run by the CEV in close cooperation with Volleyball World and provide teams from the continent with several opportunities to compete and gain valuable international ranking points.