Malaysia to host top teams in volleyball World Tour

PETALING JAYA: Top international beach volleyball players are set to battle it out in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour at Pantai Cenang in Langkawi from April 26-29.

The competition will see the participation of teams from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas in both the men’s and women’s categories.

“Unlike last year’s tournament with 16 teams per gender, this year will see more participants with 32 teams each in the men’s and women’s categories,” said Andrew Ching, the chief executive officer of E-Plus Global Sdn Bhd, promoter and organisers of this year’s tournament.

“This is a huge boost to the competition and big draw for fans from the around the region.”

The countries represented in the men’s competition are Austria, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Holland, Oman, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand and hosts Malaysia.

The women’s category will feature teams from Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Holland, New Zealand, Paraguay, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia.

The competition will commence with the qualifiers on Thursday and before moving into the group phases on Friday.

The round-of-16 and the quarter-finals are scheduled on Saturday with the semi-finals and finals on Sunday.

The event is part of the World Tour 1-Star (WT1) tournament.

After Langkawi, the tour will move to Manila, the Philippines and Bangkok, Thailand.