Lausanne, Switzerland, April 26, 2018 - With more than a half-million US dollars in prize money being awarded, the busiest weekend in the history of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour will occur during the first six days of May when a total of 54 countries will have 323 men's and women's teams competing at four different beach volleyball tournaments.
Action begins on Tuesday in the United States for the preliminary rounds at the $300,000 Huntington Beach Open in southern California where 148 men's and women's teams from 23 countries are currently entered in the FIVB World Tour event. The next day in Turkey, the $150,000 Mersin Open begins where 100 men's and women's pairs from 37 countries are scheduled to compete.
The busy weekend also features a $10,000 event in the Philippines at Manila starting Thursday where 46 men's and women's teams from 25 countries are entered. The $50,000 Anchor Beach Volleyball Carnival 2018 in Cambodia begins on May 3 for a women's-only FIVB World Tour tournament where 29 pairs from 17 countries are scheduled to compete in Phnom Penh.
All four sites will be hosting their first-ever FIVB World Tour event while the Manila and Phnom Penh tournaments mark the first-ever international beach volleyball events in those Asian countries. Mersin now joins Alanya (1996, 1997 and 1998) and Antalya (2015 and 2016) in staging FIVB World Tour events in Turkey. Alanya is also scheduled for a FIVB event at the end of May for both men and women.
Huntington Beach, known as “Surf City USA”, has been a frequent host for American domestic beach volleyball events and now becomes the 13th site in the United States to host an FIVB World Tour event. Huntington Beach also becomes the fifth southern California site to host an FIVB World Tour event with earlier events in Hermosa Beach (1995 and 1996), Los Angeles (1997 World Championships), Carson (2003) and Long Beach (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016).