Beach Pro Tour 2022 - News

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George & Andre in action in Ostrava

The men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking has new leaders! Despite failing to make the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Ostrava Elite16 semifinals, Andre Stein and George Wanderley shifted up a notch to take top spot.

With the previous number one team - Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot of the Netherlands - not playing in Czechia, and Andre and George pocketing 760 points for reaching the Ostrava quarterfinals, the Brazilians climbed up from second to first on a new total of 4,560 points.

Another Dutch pair, Ostrava bronze medallists Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen also moved up. They went from fifth to second on 4,240 points, 140 clear of third-ranked Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner of Czechia, who rose from their seventh position last week after claiming silver in Ostrava.

The men’s top 10 has as many as three new members. Former number ones Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway, who topped the Ostrava podium on Sunday to claim 1,200 points towards the ranking, went up from 17th to eighth on a total of 3,680 points, just 20 short of Spain’s Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira, who finished fourth in Czechia to climb from 11th to seventh. Ostrava quarterfinalists Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak also rejoined the top 10, rising from 12th to sixth on 3,758 points.

The Ostrava winners on the ladies’ side, Cinja Tillmann and Svenja Muller of Germany, continued their steady rise in the women’s World Ranking. With 1,200 newly gained points, their point total went up to 4,180 and their position from ninth to fourth. Tillmann and Muller are just 40 points short of third-ranked Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli, who claimed Elite16 bronze on Sunday. They are also 300 points clear of sixth-ranked compatriots Karla Borger and Julia Sude and the new highest standing German pair in the ranking.

While there is no change in the women’s number one and two teams, Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands (5,500 points) and Barbara Seixas and Carol Solberg of Brazil (4,940), respectively, the top 10 has a couple of new members.

Australia’s Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho Del Solar took 760 points for their fifth place in Ostrava to climb up from 17th to ninth on a total of 3,212 points, 88 short of eighth-ranked Andressa Cavalcanti and Vitoria Rodrigues of Brazil, who moved up from 12th position after their ninth-place finish in Czechia.

Meanwhile, Italy’s Fabrizio Manni and Francesco Vanni, who claimed their first 400 points towards the current World Ranking by winning gold at the Cervia Futures on Sunday, joined the charts in position 190.

In the Cervia Futures women's competition, winners Mexime van Driel and Emma Piersma of the Netherlands went up from 91st to 54th. The other two medallists of last week’s event in Italy also made substantial leaps into the top 100. Runners-up Menia Bentele and Anna Lutz of Switzerland went from 201st to 93rd, while bronze medallists Viktoria Orsi Toth and Reka Orsi Toth of Italy rose from 136th to 80th.

With the distances between the teams in the World Ranking so short, another Elite16 event getting underway in Jurmala on Wednesday, and last year’s Ostrava 4-star points dropping out of the accounts, it will be interesting to see what further changes to the charts the new week will bring.