The 2019 World Championships will run from June 28 to July 7 at the Hamburg Rothenbaum Stadium with a total prize purse of $1.000.000. About 13.000 fans will follow the 48 teams per gender on centre court. New winner teams will be crowned as the defending champions teamed up with new partners. Current world champion Laura Ludwig (Germany) is playing with Maggie Kozuch after Kira Walkenhorst had to retire form professional beach volleyball in January. On the men’s side, defending champions Evandro and Andre Loyola (Brazil) have split up. While Evandro joined forces with Olympic champion Bruno Schmidt, Andre Loyola is now playing with George Wanderley after splitting from Alison.
The tournament schedule outlines pool play until July 3 in 12 pools of four teams with the top two teams from each pool going directly to the elimination round. They will be joined by the eight best third-ranked teams. These 32 teams will continue in single-elimination play with the medal matches being played on July 6 and 7. Top favorites are Norwegian Vikings Anders Mol and Christian Sorum who have already posted three 4-star wins this season at Itapema (Brazil), Jianjiang (China) and Ostrava (Czech Republic). They will play in Pool A.
Pools Men
Pools Women
Part of AVPFirst and AVPNext
The 2019 World Tour Finals in Rome will gather the planet’s best beach volleyball teams on the men’s and women’s side. The US$ 600,000 event will take place at the Foro Italico sports complex from September 4-8, 2019. It is the same site where all previous five FIVB World Tour events in Rome took place.
In contrast to the previous editions of the World Tour Finals, the Rome event will be played in a regular 5-star event format with 32 teams featured in the main draw. The event will also be part of the Olympic qualification process towards Tokyo 2020 with the winner earning 600 points. Prior to Wednesday’s qualifiers, country quota matches will take place on Tuesday afternoon for Austrian, Brazilian, Italian and US teams. Main draw starts on September 5, quarterfinals and semifinals will be played on September 7 and the finals on September 8.
In the men’s competition, all top teams from Europe, the US and Brazil will be participating. Norwegian Vikings Anders Mol and Christian Sorum are the defending champions and probably the top favorites while Russian world champions Krasilnikov/ Stoyanovskiy have been struggling recently. 2017 champions Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena (USA) are seeded 7th, last weekend’s AVP Chicago winners Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb are seeded 17th. Jake Gibb after the Chicago final:
“We are looking forward to Rome now. The Rome event site feels like a gladiator pit.”
On the women’s side, top-seeds are Canadian world champions Humana-Paredes/ Pavan and America’s A-Team Alix Klineman/ April Ross who already battled it out in the Hamburg world champs and the AVP Manhattan Beach finals. After losing the aformentioned matches to Canada, the A-Team took revenge last weekend and defeated the world champions in the AVP Chicago Gold Series Championships. Following the two top teams are Aussies Artacho/Clancy and the strong Brazilian teams. In Tuesday’s US country quota playoff Flint/ Day will face Sweat/Walsh Jennings.
Find the full entry list on the FIVB event page.
The American Beach Volleyball Tour is back. Instead of a regular season that has been cancelled, the AVP hosts the 2020 AVP Champions Cup Series. It will be played on three consecutive weekends in July and beginning of August. It was obviously not an easy task for the AVP to find a location during these troubling times. But finally, all events will take place at Long Beach in Southern Calfornia.
The first event kicks off on July 18th with the Monster Hydro Cup. The event will be made up of 8 main draw teams for both men and women. There are 6 auto entry teams based on AVP points and 2 teams emerging from the Qualifiers on Friday. Total prize purse is US$ 200.000.
The entry list reads like the “who is who” of American beach volleyball. Top seeds on the men’s side are beach volleyball legends Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena. They are followed by last season’s most successful team Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb. Seeded number 5 is beach volleyball veteran John Hyden who teamed up with Jeremy Casebeer to directly make it into the main draw. The men’s qualifier with 12 teams will witness a gathering of three Olympic champions. Besides Brazilian beach volleyball gold medalist Ricardo Santos and his partner Miles Evans, Reid Priddy and David Lee will join forces. The two volleyball veterans won gold in the Olympic volleyball tournament of the 2008 Beijing Games.
On the women’s side, the A-Team Alix Klineman and April Ross are the top seeds. Their main competitor are Canadians Sarah Pavan and Humana-Paredes. While Claes/Sponcil are seeded number 3, beach volleyball gypsy Brandie Wilkerson is again joining forces with Sara Hughes. Read the full entry list here.
Due to current regulations, no fans can attend the AVP Champions Cup Series. As in previous years, the main draw action will be livestreamed on Amazon Prime Video. Only exceptions are two matches that will be featured on NBC. One of them will be the women’s final on Sunday 1:30pm PT. Alongside Kevin Barnet and Camryn Irwin, it is Sydney 2000 Olympic Champion Dain Blanton who will provide deep insights in his commentary.
The Wilson Cup is the second event of the AVP Champions Cup Series. The three-event series started last weekend with the top seeds claiming the title in convincing fashion. On the men’s side, US oldies Phil Dalhausser and Nick Luncena claimed their win after beating Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb in a nail-biting three set fight (21:19, 13:21, 15:13). After a total of 14 clashes the two teams are now tied at 7:7. In the women’s competiton, A-Team Alix Klineman and April Ross defeated beach volleyball gypsy Brandie Wilkerson and Sara Hughes in the final.
Just right at the same day when the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were supposed to start, the AVP Wilson Cup brings back professional beach volleyball in the United States. The event at Long Beach in California will be made up of 8 main draw teams for both men and women. There are 6 auto entry teams based on previous performance and 2 teams emerging from the Qualifiers on Friday. Total prize purse is US$ 200.000.
The men’s main draw will feature the same teams as last weekend. New blood might be coming from Friday’s qualifiers where Bill Kolinske is now teaming up with Mark Burik after Sean Rosenthal had to withdraw due to injury. The newly formed team did obviously have a rough time to get some practice since beach volleyball is still prohibited in most places in California.
Traci Callahan and Crissy Jones will directly go into the women’s main draw being seeded number 6. They are pushing Emily Day and Lauren Fendrick into the qualifiers after beating the exact same team last weekend and finishing fifth. A new team in the qualifier will be Jace Pardon and Emily Hartong. Hartong who usually plays with Geena Urango is replacing Karissa Cook who also had to withdraw due to injury.
As for last weekend’s Monster Hydro Cup, no fans can attend the entire AVP Champions Cup Series that will come to an end with the Porsche Cup on the first weekend of August. All main draw action will again be livestreamed on Amazon Prime.
The Porsche Cup is the third and final event of the AVP Champions Cup Series. In addition to the US$200k prize purse of the Porsche Cup, there is a US$50k bonus purse per gender for the Champions Cup. The main draw will again feature eight teams per gender, six auto entries and two qualifiers.
After the top seeds won the first two events, they have the best chances to also claim the Champions Cup title. This will be the case if A-Team Alix Klineman/April Ross or Phil Dalhausser/ Nick Lucena finish 4th or better in the Porsche Cup. This seems to be quite a safe bet. The men’s main draw will exactly have the same teams as in the Wilson Cup. On the women’s side, Lauren Fendrick and Emily Day return to the main draw replacing Jones/Callahan.
In Friday’s qualifiers, last week’s main draw teams Loomis/Partain and Evans/Santos are seeded number 2 and 3. While Loomis/Partain will play the winner of volleyball Olympic gold medalist Reid Priddy with his partner David Lee vs. Brunsting/Frishman, Brazilian Olympic champion Ricardo Santos and his partner will go up against the winner of Doherty/Drost vs. Benesh/Beranek. In last week’s qualifier Evans/Santos fought an epic battle against Benesh/Beranek to advance and finally make it into the main draw (17:21, 21:17, 18:16).
Since no fans can attend the event, all main draw action will be livestreamed on Amazon Prime Video. NBCSN will show some selected matches. The Porsche Cup will finally close the 2020 AVP season.
