Myslowice and Ljubljana play hosts to this week’s Futures
News
The Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour is set for a second-straight week of simultaneous Futures tournaments taking place in two different European locations with Myslowice, Poland, and Ljubljana, Slovenia, playing hosts to this week’s events.
A traditional destination for international tournaments since 2006, Myslowice is set to become the third Polish city to be part of the event’s calendar in 2022, joining Bialystok and the country’s capital Warsaw. The matches will take place between Thursday and Sunday.
As many as 56 teams (28 men’s and 28 women’s) from 21 countries are entered to compete in the Polish tournament. Europe will be represented by duos from Poland (11), Austria (6), the Czech Republic (6), England (4), Lithuania (4), Norway (3), France (2), Israel (2), Latvia (2), the Netherlands (2), Ukraine (2), Bulgaria (1), Finland (1), Germany (1), Hungary (1), Italy (1), Slovakia (1) and Sweden (1).
In the men’s tournament, the host country will try to repeat what it did last week in Warsaw and take all three medals available. Poland has more teams than any other country in the main draw with four – Jakub Szalankiewicz/Mateusz Florczyk, Jakub Zdybek/Pawel Lewandowski, Milosz Kruk/Mikolaj Miszczuk and Aleksander Czachorowski/Filip Lejawa.
The women’s event will see one of the strongest fields of the last few events with Poland’s Katarzyna Kociolek/Marta Lodej, Ukraine’s Valentyna Davidova/Diana Lunina and Anhelina Khmil/Tetiana Lazarenko, the Czech Republic’s Anna Pospisilova/Martina Williams and Ieva Dumbauskaite/Gerda Grudzinskaite leading the way.
In Ljubljana, matches will take place at Congress Square and will feature another 56 teams (half in each gender) from 29 countries. The European contingent will have seven teams from hosts Slovenia, four from Austria and Hungary, three from Finland and Switzerland, two from Belgium, Italy, Norway and Scotland and one from the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Austria seems well-positioned for a title run on the men’s side with three-time Olympian and former #EuroBeachVolley champion Clemens Doppler and his partner Thomas Kunert, besides recently-crowed #EuroBeachVolleyU20 champions Tim Berger and Timo Hammarberg, who will start in the qualifier. The Austrians are expected to face strong competition from two teams from Argentina and another two from Australia.
Among the women, the home team of Tjasa Kotnik and Tajda Lovsin, which will compete at this year’s #EuroBeachVolley, lead the way among the European duos. The event will also mark the return of Czech blocker Michala Frank (formerly Kvapilova) to international tournaments after she gave birth to her first daughter, Clara, earlier this year. She will be playing with Michaela Brinkova.
Both events will begin with the qualifier on Thursday, when four main draw berths in each gender will be in play. The main draws start on Friday and end on Sunday, with the medal matches.