French men strong at home in Montpellier
Futures in Europe
One of three destinations for the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour in Europe this week, Montpellier will be the first of them to get the action started as the qualifier of the men’s Futures tournament held in the French coastal city will be played on Wednesday.
The five-day competition held at the Montpellier Place Georges Frêche will end on Sunday and will reunite 27 duos from 15 countries. As many as 12 European nations will be represented – Andorra, Belgium, Czechia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Switzerland -, as well as three countries from outside the continent – Australia, Cameroon and Egypt.
Hosts France will have more teams than any other country in the event, with eight duos getting on the sand over the week, and also have the four highest-seeded teams in the main draw in Montpellier.
Leading the way will be the temporary duo of Rémi Bassereau and Arnaud Gauthier Rat. Originally partnered with Julien Lyneel and Youssef Krou, the two recently joined forces for the A1 CEV EuroBeachVolley and finished ninth.
The recently-crowned U20 European champions, 18-year-old Arthur Canet and 19-year-old Téo Rotar are the second-seeded team in this week’s tournament. The young French were also ninth at the EuroBeachVolley, in their first appearance at the event.
Completing the top four in the Montpellier Futures entry list are the Aye brothers Quincy and Calvin, who ranked 17th on the EuroBeachVolley, and the duo of Samuel Catter and Olivier Barthelemy, which won a bronze medal at the Satun Futures earlier this year.
Beach Pro Tour Montpellier Futures
Also beginning the tournament in the main draw are the Netherlands’ Thijs Nijeboer/Mart van Werkhoven and Erik Nijland/Yannick Verbene, Australia’s Joshua Howat/Jack Pearse and Robert Reeves/Declan Tiso, Belgium’s Joppe Van Langendonck/Alexy Humblet, Egypt’s Atef Nassif/Abdelrahman Fayed, Finland’s Arttur Pennanen/Valtter Pennanen and Greece’s Stavros Ntallas/Dimitrios Chatzinikolau.
The 15-team qualifier held on Wednesday will see four duos advance to complete the main draw, which will begin with pool play on Thursday. Three teams per pool will advance to the elimination rounds, which will culminate with Sunday’s medal matches.
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 ranking points during the Olympic qualification period for the Paris 2024 Games.