Madrid to open the Beach Pro Tour Futures season in Europe

Europe will be the place to be when it comes to international beach volleyball in the next five months, with as many as 21 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour events set to be held in the continent until the start of October.

The list includes 15 Futures tournaments, which will be run by the CEV in close cooperation with Volleyball World and will 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.

The marathon starts for European teams this week, with the Spanish capital Madrid hosting a men-only Futures event, which will be held at the Puerta de Hierro Beach Volleyball centre from Thursday to Sunday, the same location of last year’s Futures event in the city.

The four-day event will feature 28 teams, with the 12 best-ranked ones starting directly in the main draw and the remaining 16 battling for the four last spots during the qualifier.

The Madrid Futures will have duos from 17 different countries in action and, although the vast majority of them hail from neighboring European nations, the tournament also attracted two tandems from China and one from Brazil.

Hosts Spain will have the highest number of participating teams with five duos entered. Austria (2), Belgium, Denmark (2), England, France, Germany (2), Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania (2), Hungary, Norway (2), Poland (2) and Switzerland will also contend for medals this week in Madrid.

Top-seeded brothers Javier and Alejandro Huerta will carry the biggest Spanish hopes of winning the gold medal at home this week in Madrid. The two reignited their partnership at the end of last season and got ninth-place place finishes in consecutive Beach Pro Tour Challenge events in Dubai.

Norwegians Markus Mol and Jo Sunde, who took gold at last year’s Warsaw Futures, Danish Jacob Brink and Kristoffer Abell, who claimed bronze in Lecce, and Poles Mateusz Florczyk and Mikolaj Miszczuk, who combined to win three medals (one gold, one silver, one bronze) with different partners in 2022 and are now together, will also enter the event with the expectation of making it to the podium.

Following the completion of the qualifier on Thursday, the event will continue in the main draw, with a modified pool play stage. In the elimination rounds, the four pool winners will advance directly to the quarterfinals while the second and third-placed duos will need to play in the Round of 12. The medal matches will be held on Sunday.