It is time for the first high-level event on the 2025 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. A few days after the season got underway with the first Futures event of the year, in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand, now Mexico will host the first Challenge event for 2025. The Yucatan Challenge in Puerto Progreso is set to take place from Wednesday, March 19, through Sunday, March 23. With the new season practically launching the new four-year Olympic cycle, beach volleyball fans are up for an opportunity to see plenty of newly shaped pairings make their Beach Pro Tour debuts in Mexico this week.
Beach Pro Tour
Plenty of new teams to make Beach Pro Tour debuts at Yucatan Challenge this week
The first Challenge event of the year starts on Wednesday
Published 03:00, 18 Mar 2025
Swiss Olympic medalist Tanja Huberli will be back in action with a new partner
- Watch the Yucatan Challenge on VBTV.
The Yucatan Challenge event will be the first one to be conducted under the recently adopted new format, with a 32-team main draw per gender. It starts with two rounds of qualifiers with eight teams advancing to the main draw and joining the 24 directly seeded. The main draw begins with modified pool play, with eight pools of four teams, playing two pool semifinals, a losers’ match and a winners’ match to determine the final standings in each pool. The teams that finish third in the pools will take on the runners-up of other pools in the sixteenthfinal single elimination round, the winners of which will move to the eighthfinal round, where they will challenge the eight pool winners. Quarterfinals, semifinals and medal matches will follow to determine the final standings.
The women’s main draw pre-seeding is headlined by the newly formed Brazilian partnership of Carol Solberg & Rebecca Cavalcanti. 37-year-old Carol and her previous partner Barbara Seixas were the number one team in the FIVB World Ranking until just last week. 31-year-old Rebecca was teammates with the legendary Agatha Bednarczuk, who retired at the end of last year.
Swiss star and Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medalist Tanja Huberli will open a new Beach Pro Tour page with new partner Leona Kernen. The pairing of highly experienced 32-year-old Huberli and 19-year-old talent Kernen is set for their Tour debut in the Yucatan Challenge main draw.
Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medalist Taliqua Clancy who parted ways with Mariafe Artacho Del Solar after the Games in Paris and appeared at the last three Challenge events in 2024 alongside Georgia Johnson, will now start the new season in the Yucatan Challenge main draw with 23-year-old Jana Milutinovic.
After medaling at each of the last three Challenge events in 2024 along with Molly Shaw, now 28-year-old American Toni Rodriguez will hit the new season with a new teammate, 25-year-old Kylie Kuyava-De Berg, who took Chennai Challenge silver in November along with previous partner Hailey Harward. In Yucatan, Toni & DeBerg will start directly in the main draw. So will another new American duo, Julia Scoles & Lexy Denaburg, among others.
Well-known 30-year-old German player Sandra Ittlinger, who fell just short of qualifying for Paris along with Karla Borger, has now teamed up with 23-year-old Anna-Lena Grune, who picked up as many as three gold medals at Futures events in 2024.
Italy’s rising star Valentina Gottardi, who made her Olympic debut in Paris at the age of 21, will now try her luck in Mexico with 24-year-old Claudia Scampoli as a teammate.
Another Paris Olympian, Czechia’s Marie-Sara Stochlova, is ready for her Beach Pro Tour debut with 22-year-old Marketa Svozilova as a partner.
These are just a few of the many new women’s partnerships that will start their Beach Pro Tour journeys from Yucatan this week, be it directly from the main draw or from Wednesday’s qualifiers.
Of course, there are plenty of more or less established teams ready return to the Tour in Mexico this week. Among them are the likes of Paris 2024 Olympians Daniela Alvarez & Tania Moreno of Spain, Monika Paulikiene & Aine Raupelyte of Lithuania, Giuliana Poletti & Michelle Valiente of Paraguay or Lezana Placette & Alexia Richard of France, all of who are seeded directly in the main draw, or France’s Clemence Vieira & Aline Chamereau, who will headline the qualification bracket.
Yucatan Challenge action will get underway with the women’s qualifiers on Wednesday morning at 09:00 local time (15:00 UTC).
