Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot played on Thursday, in Saquarema, their first matches since last December, but judging by their performance in the first day of the men’s main draw of the second Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite event of the year, it would be hard to tell the Dutch Olympians hadn’t been active for four months.

The Europeans formed one of the six teams that won their pools in Brazil and advanced undefeated directly to the Round of 12 of the event – Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum, Sweden’s David Åhman/Jonatan Hellvig, Argentina’s Nicolas Capogrosso/Tomas Capogrosso, Cuba’s Noslen Diaz/Jorge Alayo and Germany’s Sven Winter/Lukas Pfretzschner were the other.

• Watch the Beach Pro Tour Saquarema Elite live on VBTV

The six pool winners will have the day off on Friday, only returning to action in Saquarema on Saturday. The second day of the main draw in Brazil will have the conclusion of pool play from 9:00 local time (12:00 GMT) to 12:00 (15:00 GMT) and the Round of 18 from 15:00 (18:00 GMT) to 18:00 (21:00 GMT).

Getting back to competition after finishing fourth at the 2024 Beach Pro Tour Finals last December, Boermans and de Groot lacked a little bit of match rhythm at the start of their first Pool C match in Saquarema, but managed to come back and beat Canadians Sam Schachter and Jonathan Pickett 2-1 (18-21, 21-14, 15-6).

Later, they faced Brazilian Olympians Evandro Gonçalves and Arthur Lanci and delivered a strong performance to triumph in straight sets (21-16, 21-17) and advance to the elimination rounds as the pool winners.

Also returning to action for the first time since the Beach Pro Tour Finals, where they won gold, Norwegian superstars Mol and Sørum had an even smoother start to their season. The Tokyo Olympic champions dominated Pool A, downing Brazilians George Wanderley and Saymon Barbosa 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) in their first match and topping the Chilean Grimalt cousins Marco and Esteban also in two sets (21-18, 21-17) to claim the top spot in the pool.

Reigning Olympic champions Åhman and Hellvig also had a clean first day in Saquarema, beating Brazilians Renato Lima and Pedro Oliveira 2-0 (21-19, 23-21) and Dutch Alexander Brouwer and Steven van de Velde 2-1 (21-17, 12-21, 15-9) to claim the ticket to the Round of 12 from Pool B.

Beach Pro Tour Saquarema Elite – Match Schedule

Quintana Roo finalists win pools

The two teams that met in the gold medal match of the Quintana Roo Elite, two weeks ago, managed to keep their momentum and were also among the pool winners in Brazil. Cubans Diaz and Alayo, who won gold in Mexico, emerged as the top team in Pool E after they got the better of Portuguese Hugo Campos and João Pedrosa in two sets (21-12, 21-19) and overcame Polish Olympians Michal Bryl and Bartosz Łosiak in the tie-breaker (15-21, 21-19, 26-24).

Fresh from taking silver in Quintana Roo, the Capogrosso brothers also continued in great form and advanced directly to the Round of 12 from Pool D after they swept (21-14, 21-18) Austrians Julian Hörl and Moritz Pristauz and defeated Italians Samuele Cottafava and Gianluca Dal Corso also in straight sets (21-19, 21-16).

From all six pool winners, German qualifiers Winter and Pfretzschner were arguably the most surprising ones. After winning a qualifying match on Wednesday, the Europeans got a pair of victories on Thursday to end the day as the top team in Pool F – they upset Brazilians Adrielson dos Santos and Arthur Mariano 2-0 (21-15, 24-22) in the morning and defeated French Calvin Aye and Rémi Bassereau also in straight sets (21-19, 21-16) in the evening.

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