Valencia is the first stop in the 2025 season
Futures in Europe
Europe is about to take center stage in the 2025 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour season as between this week and the end of September, as many as 25 Futures events will be held in the continent.
Spain will be the first country on the continent to host tournaments, with the city of Valencia welcoming 28 men’s and women’s teams for a double-gender event this week. Matches will take place at the beachfront Passeig de Neptú from Wednesday to Sunday.
The women will be the first to get on the court, with the qualifier being held on Wednesday, the pool phase of the main draw following on Thursday, the elimination rounds taking place on Friday and the semifinals and medal matches completing the schedule on Saturday.
As many as 17 countries will be represented in the women’s tournament in Valencia, with hosts Spain leading the way with five teams, followed by France (4), Germany (3), Czechia (2), Ukraine (2), Argentina, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.
The event will feature two players with Olympic experience. One of them is Spanish defender Paula Soria, who represented her country at the Paris Olympics last year with the legendary Liliana Fernández and now plays with María Carro – the two are the top-seeded team in the main draw.
Ranked second, right below them, is 36-year-old German defender Karla Borger, who was at both the Rio 2016 and the Tokyo 2020 Games. The veteran player will have 24-year-old Hanna-Marie Schieder by her side this week.
Competition will be tough starting from the qualifier, where young Dutch Mila Konink and Desy Poiesz and the Ukrainian Makhno twins Inna and Iryna emerge as the early favorites in the battle for the last four spots in the main draw.
Beach Pro Tour Valencia Futures
The men’s tournament, which will start on Thursday and end on Sunday following a similar timeline to the women’s, will count on teams from 20 countries – Spain have five, with the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Switzerland sending two and Argentina, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Mauritius, Sweden, Türkiye and Ukraine fielding one each.
The top-seeded team in the men’s tournament, the Huerta brothers Alejandro and Javier represent Spain’s main hopes of winning gold at home. The two will face strong competition from Switzerland, which are sending their best two duos to Valencia in Beach Pro Tour veterans Marco Krattiger and Leo Dillier and Tokyo 2020 Olympian Adrian Heidrich and partner Jonathan Jordan.
Two more Olympians can be found in the qualifier, where 39-year-old Alexander Huber and 35-year-old Robin Seidl, who represented Austria at the Rio 2016 Games, reunite almost a decade later.
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.