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It’s time for the
Beach Pro Tour Finals in Doha
December 3, 2024.- It is almost time
for the biggest Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event of the year! The
Beach Pro Tour Finals in the Qatari capital Doha will get underway on
Wednesday, December 4, and will last through Saturday, December 7.
Among the women’s line-up of 10
top-calibre teams defending Doha Finals champions Kristen Nuss & Taryn
Kloth and Terese Cannon & Megan Kraft of the United States, and Paris
2024 Olympic silver medalists Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson
of Canada.
Watch the Doha Finals on VBTV.
The 10 teams are split into two single
round-robin pools of five. The two pool winners will advance straight to
the semifinals, while the teams placed second or third will move to a
quarterfinal round. Action will start at 13:00 local time (10:00 UTC) on
Wednesday.
Pool A
Current leaders in the FIVB World
Ranking, Latvia’s Tina Graudina & Anastasija Samoilova, collected four
podiums in the 2024 Beach Pro Tour – gold at the Recife Challenge,
silver at the Stare Jablonki Challenge and bronze at the Ostrava Elite16
and the Gstaad Elite16. The Latvian pair competed at their second
Olympic Games and reached the quarterfinals at Paris 2024, where they
were eliminated by the champions-to-be, Brazil’s Ana Patricia Ramos &
Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda). During the last months of the year, they
topped the World Ranking for the first time in their careers. Tina &
Anastasija will lead Pool A in Doha in the company of another four
high-level duos.
The Doha Finals will be the last
professional tournament for the iconic Agatha Bednarczuk. The
41-year-old Brazilian is set to put an end to her glorious career after
playing at two Olympic Games and earning silver at Rio de Janeiro 2016,
in addition to claiming the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship
title in 2015. This year, Agatha and her partner Rebecca Cavalcanti
picked up silver at the Guadalajara Challenge.
Another Olympic medalist, China’s Xue
Chen, will also compete in Pool A. The experienced Beijing 2008 bronze
medalist and four-time Olympian will reunite with two-time Olympian Xia
Xinyi for the Finals. Before Paris 2024, they picked up Challenge golds
in Saquarema and Stare Jablonke. With a new partner, Xue also claimed
gold at the Haikou Challenge last month and an AVC Asian Championship
silver. The continental gold went to Xia and her new teammate.
The pool also features USA’s Terese
Cannon & Megan Kraft. They did not play at the Paris Olympics, but after
that rose to the top 10 in the World Ranking to become the highest
placed American team in the chart. They are on a roll with three
consecutive Elite16 podiums – Gstaad silver, Vienna bronze and Rio de
Janeiro silver.
The last spot in the pool was taken by
Italian wild cards Valentina Gottardi & Reka Orsi Toth. Having just
turned 22, Gottardi is the youngest player to compete in the Doha
tournament. The Paris Olympian, who reached number six in the world and
claimed 2024 CEV European Championship silver with experienced Marta
Menegatti, joined forces with Orsi Toth ahead of the Rio Elite16, where
they reached the quarterfinals. With her previous teammate, Orsi Toth
collected four Futures medals on the 2024 Beach Pro Tour.
Pool B
The world’s number three and number
four teams – Germany’s Svenja Muller & Cinja Tillmann and Netherlands’
Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon, respectively – highlight the Pool B line-up.
The German Olympians triumphed at the Vienna Elite16 and finished
runners-up at the Vienna Elite16. They also celebrated as European
champions, while two-time Olympians and former World Ranking leaders
Stam & Schoon earned a Tepic Elite16 silver and an Espinho Elite16
bronze.
Defending Doha Finals champions
Kristen Nuss & Taryn Kloth of the United States, who arrived at Paris
2024 as the number two team in the world, riding the wave of three
consecutive Elite16 podiums – silver in Brasilia and gold in Espinho and
Gstaad – but were disappointed by their early departure from the
Olympics after the eighthfinals, will try to bounce back in Doha, where
they will also start their campaign in Pool B. That means a remake of
last year’s final with Muller & Tillmann is on the programme for Friday.
Young Spaniards Daniela Alvarez &
Tania Moreno, who made headlines at Paris 2024 by beating some big
names, including Stam & Schoon in the eighthfinals, arrive in Doha with
one 2024 medal to show, a Xiamen Challenge bronze.
On the other hand, the team that
knocked out Alvarez & Moreno in the Olympic quarterfinals will also
compete in this pool. Paris 2024 Olympic silver medalists Melissa
Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson are the other wild-card team at the
Finals. The two-time Canadian Olympians picked up another two silvers in
2024, at the Doha and the Ostrava Elite16 events, peaking to number
three in the world right before the Games.
VW Beach Pro Tour Finals in Doha: full schedule |
