European men and women ready to hit the sand at Cervia Futures
News
Following the Spanish capital Madrid and the Greek island of Rhodes, the Italian coastal city of Cervia will become the third destination for Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour events in Europe this weekend.
The town with a population of 25,000-people that’s located on the East coast of the country will be the first to host a double-gender event on the continent. Madrid had separate events for the men and the women in the last two weeks while only male athletes got to compete in Rhodes this past week.
The four-day event, which will start on Thursday with the qualifiers, will be held at the Fantini Club, which is located right by the Adriatic Sea and hosted an FIVB World Tour one-star event last September, in the only occasion international beach volleyball was played in Cervia.
This year’s event will feature 56 teams (28 in each gender), 32 of which are set to compete in the qualifier, which will determine the final four main draw duos in each gender. Beach volleyball teams from 22 countries are entered to compete in the event, including tandems from 15 European nations.
Italian Jakob Windisch, who won last year’s World Tour event in Cervia with Samuele Cottafava, will be back to try to defend his title. The 23-year-old blocker is now paired with Gianluca Dal Corso and they form the highest-ranked European men’s team in the event, seeded fifth.
Six other European teams from Italy (3), the Czech Republic, Israel and Poland are also guaranteed in the men’s main draw alongside teams from Uruguay, Australia (2) and New Zealand (2).
The home country also dominates the women’s main draw, with four of the 12 teams. Among them are top-seeded Claudia Scampoli/Margherita Bianchin and the teams of Marta Menegatti/Valentina Gottardi and Reka Orsi Toth/Viktoria Orsi Toth, which won silver and bronze medals at last week’s Madrid Futures.
The Netherlands, Austria, Lithuania and Ukraine have each one team in the main draw. Japan has two duos with tandems from New Zealand and Canada completing the lineup in Cervia.