2017 FIVB BEACH VOLLEYBALL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS – VIENNA
- July 28 to August 6
- Vienna Centre Court, Vienna, Austria
- Co-ed
- Championships
- Event Site
- Schedule
- Facts & Figures
- Watch on YouTube
The 2017 FIVB Vienna Beach World Championships are just around the corner and we have all the links you need to know to keep up with the action.
There are 48 teams for each gender of the tournament, which you can find below:
The tournament will begin with a single round-robin in 4-team pools. The top 2 teams in each of the 12 pools will automatically advance to the round of 32, single-elimination bracket. So too will the top 4 3rd-place teams from pool play, based on match points, set-point ratios, and/or rally-point ratios.
The rest of the 3rd-place teams will go to a “Lucky Loser” round, where the 8 remaining teams will play a single head-to-head match to round out the 32.
Teams will be re-seeded for the elimination bracket, with pool winners earning seeds 1-12, pool runners-up taking seeds 13-24, and 3rd-place pool finishers (including “lucky losers”)earning seeds 25-32.
The 11th edition of this event will run from July 28th-August 6th, with $1 million in prize money available. That includes $60,000 to the winners of each tournament ($30,000 per player, in each gender). The women’s championship match will be August 5th while the men will be August 6th.
There have been a lot of switches in teams since the last edition of the event in 2015. Bruno Schmidt/Alison Cerutti are the only team fully in tact and playing that won a medal at the last World Championship, Schmidt/Cerutti won the event. In the last edition, Brazil took home five of the six medals awarded with Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst of the Netherlands taking second place.
In major new prior to the World Championships, Kerri Walsh Jennings had to pull out of the tournament due to a dislocated shoulder injury in Olsztyn this past week. Her new partner, Nicole Branagh will now partner with Emily Day for the event.
All the men’s teams that medaled at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games are still in tact, while for the women only Kira Walkenhorst and Laura Ludwig, the champions, are still playing together.
Ludwig/Walkenhorst are still working their way back to Olympic championship form after Ludwig had shoulder surgery in the off season. This season, Ludwig/Walkenhorst have not been able to win a World Tour event, with their highest finish together coming at the Rio event in which they placed fifth. They come in as the #4 seed in the tournament, behind fellow countrywomen Chantal Laboureur/Julia Sude who are ranked #2 in the World Championships. Laboureur/Sude have a standout year together, starting off with a third place finish in Fort Lauderdale while also garnering a first place prize at the five-star Gstaad tournament earlier in July.
It will be a tough test to see which of the two top German teams in the world will come out on top, as Laboureur/Sude have momentum going forward while Ludwig/Walkenhorst have a chip on their shoulders stemming from their first place finish at the Olympics and the 2016 SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals.
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