A new era for international beach volleyball begins on Wednesday when the first matches on the new Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour will take place at the Plaza de la Constitucion in Tlaxcala, Mexico.

Tlaxcala match schedule and results

Located 120km east of the country’s capital Mexico City, Tlaxcala is all set to host a historic Challenge tournament that will reunite as many as 96 teams (48 per gender) from 27 different countries for five days of action and celebration.

The event starts on Wednesday with a 32-team qualifier. Eight teams per gender will progress to the 24-team main draw, which will be played from Thursday to Sunday.

The main draw will feature six pools with four teams each and the three-best ranked tandems at the conclusion of the modified pool play system advancing to the playoff, which will be played in single elimination format. The medal matches in both genders will take place on Sunday.

· Every match of the Tlaxcala Challenge will be available to watch live or on demand on Volleyball TV.

The Beach Pro Tour’s first-ever event will feature many of the biggest names in the sport with 13 Olympic medallists and three Olympic champions entered to compete in the tournament.

Tokyo gold medallist April Ross, who also has Olympic silver and bronze medals to her name, is one of the players entered in the competition. The 39-year-old American is set to share the court for the first time with Emily Day, who will be her partner while Alix Klineman recovers from shoulder surgery.

Brazilians Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt, who topped the Olympic podium at the Rio 2016 Games, are both also set to compete in Tlaxcala. The 36-year-old Alison, nicknamed “The Mammoth”, will have Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes by his side, while the 35-year-old Bruno will appear in an international event for the first time with new partner Saymon Barbosa.

Bruno and Saymon are part of what will certainly be a highly-competitive qualifier on the men’s side of the tournament with as many as 12 of the players set to play for the final main draw spots in Tlaxcala boasting Olympic experience. Among them are American Taylor Sander, an indoor volleyball Olympic bronze medallist at the Rio 2016 Games who moved to the sand last year, and Tokyo semifinalist Edgars Tocs, who will play for the first time alongside his new Latvian partner, 17-year-old Kristians Fokerots.

The women’s qualifier will also have highly experienced players in contention, with Czech player Barbora Hermannova, Brandie Wilkerson of Canada and Italian Marta Menegatti among the most popular names on the entry list. They have all changed partners after competing at the Tokyo Olympics, with Hermannova now partnering Maria-Sara Stochlova, Wilkerson siding with Sophie Bukovec and Menegatti joining forces with Valentina Gottardi.

Other new partnerships to watch in the Tlaxcala Challenge women’s main draw, which will also feature Tokyo bronze medallists Joana Heidrich and Anouk Verge-Depre of Switzerland, are the American duos of Terese Cannon/Sarah Sponcil and Sara Hughes/Kelley Kolinske and the Japanese team of Miki Ishii/Sayaka Mizoe.

On the men’s side of the event, some of the most interesting duos set to debut in Tlaxcala include third-seeded Polish Olympians Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak and a partnership bringing together Italian Olympic silver medallist Paolo Nicolai and 23-year-old Samuele Cottafava. Both teams will begin their campaigns in the main draw.

Quick links:
Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour
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