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 onVBTV.
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.
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