All of the top 10 teams on the women’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking have lined up to compete at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event in Ostrava next week (May 31 – June 4), the fourth Elite16 tournament of the 2023 season. The entry list is so impressive that three of these 10 teams will even have to start from the qualifiers.

· Watch all matches at the Beach Pro Tour Ostrava Elite16 event live on VBTV.

World Ranking leaders and reigning world champions Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) & Ana Patricia Ramos of Brazil will also lead the Ostrava main draw bracket as the top-seeded team. They will start their campaign for their ninth Beach Pro Tour podium as Pool A leaders in the company of the highest ranked American pair (number six in the world), Taryn Kloth & Kristen Nuss, who have made the podium four times so far and always with gold, including the last Elite16 tournament in Uberlandia, as well as Latvian standouts Anastasija Samoilova & Tina Graudina, reigning European champions and two-time Beach Pro Tour medallists, ranked seventh in the world.

Dutch stars Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon, former World Ranking leaders and currently placed fourth, will be the second-seeded team in Ostrava and will headline Pool B. Stam & Schoon topped the standings at the first-ever Elite16 event last year in Rosarito and have so far collected a total of six medals on the Tour. They will open their campaign in Czechia with a game against Germany’s top-ranked duo and World Championship bronze medallists Cinja Tillmann & Svenja Muller, who have the Ostrava 2022 trophy to defend. Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallists Joana Mader & Anouk Verge-Depre of Switzerland are also in that pool, hungry for their first Beach Pro Tour podium, after finishing fourth at both the Ostrava Elite16 and the World Championship last year.

Pool C will be led by the world’s number two team and Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallists Taliqua Clancy & Mariafe Artacho Del Solar. The Australians medalled at all three of this year’s Elite16 tournaments so far and will be aiming at their eighth overall podium on the Tour. But even getting past the pool stage looks like a serious challenge in the company of two top-level American teams. Sara Hughes & Kelly Cheng, who reunited late into the 2022 season, have already picked up four gold medals on the Beach Pro Tour and climbed to number 10 in the world, while the pair of Cheng’s previous partner Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles earned Torquay Elite16 silver at their Beach Pro Tour debut and went on to triumph as NORCECA continental champions.

Brazilian star and Rio 2016 Olympic silver medallist Agatha Bednarczuk, who took maternity leave at the end of 2021 while on top of the World Ranking with previous partner Duda, is back and ready for her Beach Pro Tour debut. She will go after her third Olympic appearance with Rebecca Cavalcanti as her new teammate. Rebecca returns to Ostrava as a silver medallist from last year’s edition, when she made the final alongside Talita Antunes. Agatha & Rebecca are seeded fourth to lead Pool D in the company of fifth-ranked and fifth-seeded Nina Brunner & Tanja Huberli of Switzerland, who took bronze at Ostrava 2022, one of four medals they have picked up on the Beach Pro Tour so far. The highest-ranked Czech pair, Barbora Hermannova & Marie-Sara Stochlova, who claimed Dubai Challenge gold and Agadir Challenge silver last year, will also start from Pool D.

The race to fill up the four vacancies in the four main draw pools will be just as fierce, with next Wednesday’s qualification bracket also packed with top-calibre teams like the world’s number three Barbara Seixas & Carol Solberg of Brazil, number eight Terese Cannon & Sarah Sponcil of the United States, number nine Marta Menegatti & Valentina Gottardi of Italy, or recently partnered Canadian stars Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson, to name a few.

The 28 women’s duos to compete among the iconic ironworks of the Lower Vitkovice industrial heritage site in Ostrava next week for their share of the US$ 150,000 prize money (per gender) and precious Olympic qualification points towards Paris 2024 come from a total of 16 different countries.

VW Beach Pro Tour Ostrava Elite16: women’s entry list
VW Beach Pro Tour Ostrava Elite16: match schedule

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