< /p> Ostrava Pro Tour Elite category tournament in beach volleyball, May 28, 2022 in Ostrava. Men's semi-finals, David Schweiner and Ondřej Perušič from the Czech Republic vs. Pablo Allepuz Herrera and Adrián Collado Gavira from Spain.
Ostrava – The complete elite of beach volleyball will meet this week at the fifth annual Pro Tour Elite tournament in Ostrava. Only one of the first ten teams in the men's and women's world rankings will meet in the area in Dolní Vítkovice. The biggest domestic hopes are Ondřej Perušič and David Schweiner, who finished second under the blast furnaces three times in a row and will come to Ostrava as winners of the previous elite tournament in Uberlandia.
Advertisement'; }
Thanks to the wild card, the promising Kryštof Jan Oliva and Tadeáš Trousil as well as the domestic women's number one Barbora Hermannová and Mariá-Sára Štochlova also made it to the main J&T Banka Ostrava Beach Pro competition, for whom it will be an opportunity to score as many points as possible for the Olympic qualification. Markéta Nausch Sluková and Helena Havelková, Anna and Kateřina Pavelkovy and Jakub Šépka and Tomáš Semerád will fight for advancement among the top 16 teams in the qualification, which will start the tournament on Wednesday.
Perušič and Schweiner will face Germany's Nils Ehlers with Clemens Wickler and Chile's Marco and Estaban Grimaltova in the group. Oliva and Trousil are waiting for Poles Bartosz Losiak and Michal Bryl and Italians Alex Ranghieri and Adrian Carambula. Hermannová and Štochlova will face the Brazilians Agatha and Rebecca and the Swiss Nina Brunnerová and Tanja Hüberliová. One more team from the qualification will be added to each group. The winner advances directly to the quarter-finals, second and third place overall to the preliminary round of the playoffs.
“On the one hand, after a long time, we finally avoided having either Norway or Sweden as the world's number one and two in the group. On the other hand, even though we are seeded four, we have at least two, and most likely three, tough teams waiting for us. Group it will be very balanced, anyone can win it,” said Perušič to ČTK, who together with Schweiner always reached at least the semi-finals in Ostrava.
“We got a wild card into the main competition, which is great, but at the same time we will want to show that it was a good choice. We want to use quality training and special Ostrava energy, and we believe that this will result in a good result for us,” said Hermannová, a native of Ostrava . “The tournament in Ostrava is always special because, like the other Czech teams, we have huge support in the audience. I'm looking forward to this, because the atmosphere is always excellent,” added Nausch Sluková, who together with Hermannová celebrated the overall first place at the premiere of the tournament in 2018.
For example, Olympic winners and world champions Anders Mol and Christian Sörum from Norway, European champions David Ahman and Jonatan Helvig from Sweden or the Dutch Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, who dominated the tournament the year before, will present themselves in Ostrava. Among the women's pairs, the audience will see, for example, Ana Patrícia from Brazil with Duda, Katja Stamová from the Netherlands with Raisa Schoonová, or Mariafe Artachová from Australia with Taliqua Clancy. The championship is defended by Mol and Sörum and the Germans Svenja Müllerová and Cinja Tillmanová.
The tournament, which is the fourth of ten stops on the elite circuit, will take place on two courts. The four best pairs will always advance from Wednesday's qualification. On Thursday and Friday, group matches are on the program, the weekend knockout battles will culminate on Sunday, when the semi-finals, the third place match and the final will take place.
