Chetumal, Mexico, October 23, 2018 – The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour returns to Mexico this week as the city of Chetumal stages the tenth event of the 2018-2019 season, a women-only three-star tournament from October 24-28.
Chetumal becomes just the fourth Mexican city to ever be part of the World Tour’s calendar, joining Acapulco, which featured the competition in 1999, 2005 and 2006, Rosarito, which hosted an event in 2000, and Puerto Vallarta, which had tournaments in 2014 and 2015.
The tournament has 34 teams from 17 countries entered to compete at the Chetumal Open and among them are some of the best players in the world, including Olympic and world champions, Olympians and World Tour medal winners.
American legend Kerri Walsh Jennings is one of them as the 40-year-old three-time Olympic champion, who won a World Tour event in Acapulco back in 2006 returns to Mexico to play just her second tournament with Rio 2016 Olympian Brooke Sweat. The tandem finished 17th on its debut, last week, in the four-star event in Las Vegas.
Canadians Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson, who claimed the gold medal in Las Vegas, are the top-seeded team for the Chetumal Open. The team collected four medals in the 2017-2018 season – one gold, one silver and two bronze.
Brazilian Maria Clara Salgado, a veteran of 17 World Tour seasons, will also compete in Chetumal with partner Elize Maia Secomandi. The team has collected one bronze medal in just nine tournaments together.
Russians Bocharova and Voronina are fresh from winning a gold medal at the Youth Olympics
Russians Maria Voronina, 18, and Mariia Bocharova, 16, will play in the World Tour for the first time since they won the 2018 Youth Olympics, in Buenos Aires, las week. The rising stars, who also won the U-19 World Championship and the U-20 European Championship this year, will be playing in just their sixth World Tour event together.
The home country will have four duos playing in Chetumal – Atenas Gutierrez/Karla Valdez, Isis Camacho/Alejandra Villavicencio, Silvia Herdrick/Estefania Ibarra and Zaira Orellana/Martha Revuelta. The first three will make their World Tour debuts while Orellana and Revuelta already combine for 22 international appearances.
The event starts on Wednesday with the qualification tournament, which will have 10 teams playing for the last eight main draw spots. The main phase of the competition goes from Thursday to Sunday, when the champions will be known.