Beach Volleyball

Race for the last spots in the Finals starts in Messina

Beach Nations Cup

Article Mon, Jun 16 2025
Author: Guilherme Torres

The last three spots in each gender in the 2025 CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup Finals will be awarded this week, and the first ones will be in play in the Italian city of Messina between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Olympian Valentina Gottardi and partner Reka Orsi Toth will lead the Italian team in Messina

Set to host a Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures event over the weekend at the Piazza Duomo, the Italian city will first welcome women’s duos from Belgium and France and men’s teams from Denmark and Germany, which will challenge the home squads in the Beach Nations Cup, an exciting ‘country vs country’ competition introduced in 2022, which resembles the Davis Cup in tennis.

The seven pool winners in each gender will join hosts Portugal in the Finals, which are going to take place in Espinho from July 17-20. So far, Spain, Estonia, Germany and the Netherlands are qualified among the women, while Spain, the Netherlands, Czechia and France booked their spots on the men’s side.

Playing at home, Italy will rely on their top teams to qualify for the Finals this week in Messina. Leading the Italian team will be Paris Olympian Valentina Gottardi and partner Reka Orsi Toth, who will be joined by Beach Pro Tour regular Claudia Scampoli and Giada Bianchi.

CEV Beach Nations Cup – Women’s Pool D

The home duos will face strong competition from France, who will send the two teams that represented the country at last year’s Paris Olympics – Lézana Placette/Alexia Richard and Clémence Vieira/Aline Chamerau – to Messina this week.

French Olympians Lézana Placette and Alexia Richard will be in action in Italy

Looking to play the dark horse’s role this week, Belgium will be represented by Inès Piret/Youna Coens and Simone Vervloet/Lente Thant.

On the men’s side, the Italians will count on two players with Olympic experience as Paris Olympian Samuele Cottafava will form one of the country’s teams with partner Gianluca Dal Corso, while Enrico Rossi, who competed in the Tokyo Games, will be with Marco Viscovich in the other one.

Left-handed defender Samuele Cottafava is one of the attractions of the men's tournament

CEV Beach Nations Cup – Men’s Pool E

Beach volleyball powerhouse Germany will have the Sagstetter brothers Benedikt and Jonas, who are in great form on the Beach Pro Tour, and the duo of Momme Lorenz and Tilo Rietschel trying to take them to the Beach Nations Cup Finals.

Completing the men’s lineup in Messina, the Danish team will feature Kristoffer Abell/Villads Napier and Mads Møllgaard/Nicolai Hovmann.

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