News
Beach Volleyball News
After giving Latvia their first EuroBeachVolley title in almost a decade last year, Martins Plavins and Kristians Fokerots have another important mission this week, as they will lead their country’s men’s team in the Preliminary Phase of the 2025 CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup in the Latvian capital Riga.
The O-Sands Beach Stadium will host both the men’s Pool B, which will feature Austria, Israel and Latvia, and the women’s Pool C, which will reunite Israel, Latvia and Ukraine, between Friday and Saturday.
The winners in each gender will qualify for the Finals of the Beach Nations Cup, an exciting ‘country vs country’ competition introduced in 2022, which resembles the Davis Cup in tennis. This year’s Finals will be held in Espinho from July 17-20, reuniting hosts Portugal and the seven pool winners from the Preliminary Phase.
The winners of last year’s EuroBeachVolley, Plavins and Fokerots get to Riga fresh from their victory at last week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures event held in Jurmala. The two will have Arturs Rinkevics and Ardis Bedritis as teammates this week in Riga.
CEV Beach Nations Cup – Men’s Pool B
Austria should be Latvia’s main challenger this week in Riga. The country will be represented by Tim Berger/Timo Hammarberg and Julian Hörl/Moritz Pristauz in this week’s event.
The pool’s dark horse, Israel will have Eylon Elazar/Kevin Cuzmiciov and Tamir Hershko/River Day attempting to take the country to the Finals.
On the women’s event, Latvia will rely mostly on young players to succeed in their home sand, having one of their teams formed by 17-year-old Līva Ēbere and 19-year-old Deniela Konstantinova and the other reuniting 21-year-old Anija Ozolina and 30-year-old Marta Ozolina.
A rising force in the continent, Ukraine will have two strong duos competing this week in Riga, with Valentyna Davidova/Anhelina Khmil and Maryna Hladun/Tetiana Lazarenko.
Like the country’s men’s duos, Israeli women’s pairs of Daniela Gonzalez/Dafna Maor and Ronni Rivka Lavie/Shiray Danenberg will also try to cause upsets against higher-ranked opponents in the event.