Madrid hosts the first event of the season
Futures in Europe
As it happened in the last two years, the Spanish capital Madrid is set to kick off the season of Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures events held in Europe, which will continue until the end of September.
This year, the schedule will feature 22 events, which will be held in 19 cities and 11 countries from May 9 to September 22. 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.
The Parque Deportivo Puerta de Hierro will once again host matches, which will only feature men’s teams this week, from May 9-12. The women will play one week later, from May 16-19, with CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup encounters on both genders taking place in between the two events, from May 13-15.
The season-opening tournament will count on 28 teams, coming from 17 countries, 15 of which are in Europe. Hosts Spain lead the way with five teams, followed by Germany, with four. Finland, Italy, Poland and Sweden will send two teams, while Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Israel, Norway and Slovakia will have each one representative. Teams from Mauritius and Venezuela complete the list.
Seeded second, Poles Maciej Rudol and Filip Lejawa are the highest-ranked European team headed into the event, followed by French Elouan Chouikh-Barbez and Tom Altwies. Hosts Spain have four teams starting from the main draw in Daniel Moreno/Roberto Sanfélix, Álvaro Viera/Antonio Saucedo, Nathan Matos/José Aba and Blai Vilanova/Jorge Pascual.
Also guaranteed in the main draw are Germany’s Robin Sowa/Maximilian Just and Lui Wüst/Philipp Huster, Israel’s Tomer Hadar/David Lanciano and Greece’s Stavros Ntallas/Dimitrios Chatzinikolaou.
Four other European teams will emerge from the qualifier, which will start the tournament on Thursday, to form the 16-team main draw in Madrid. Pool play will be held on Friday, with the Round of 12 and the quarterfinals scheduled for Saturday and the semifinals and medal matches on Sunday.
Teams from the continent have a very positive retrospect when playing in the Spanish capital on the Beach Pro Tour, having won five of the six medals in play in the last two years, including the two golds.