The top men’s Dutch beach volleyball teams are ready to cross the Atlantic Ocean next week and represent their country in North America as the Canadian city of Edmonton hosts the sixth Challenge tournament of the 2023 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour season.

With three teams guaranteed in the main draw, and all of them seeded among the top five of the event, the Netherlands have an excellent opportunity to add to their medals total this season in Canada.

• Watch the Beach Pro Tour Edmonton Challenge live on VBTV

Leading the Dutch squad in Edmonton will be veterans Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen. The 2013 world champions and Rio 2016 Olympic bronze medallists are seeded second in the main draw and will be looking for their first Beach Pro Tour medal in 2023.

After taking a silver and a bronze in Elite16 events last year, the 12-year partners couldn’t get past fifth place, a result they had three times already in 2023, in five tournaments played this season.

The silver medallists of the 2021 European Championship, Stefan Boermans and Yorick De Groot have been the most successful Dutch team so far in the season. The two, who resumed their partnership at the start of the season after De Groot recovered from a severe back injury, took silver at the La Paz Challenge and made another semifinal appearance one week later, finishing fourth at the Tepic Elite16. They are seeded third in the Edmonton Challenge.

In fifth place are Steven van de Velde and Matthew Immers, who turned their temporary partnership into a permanent one during the 2023 season. The two came very close to winning their first medal together at the end of April, when they were fourth at the Uberlândia Elite16.

Beach Pro Tour Edmonton Challenge – Men's Entry List

Occupying the other two spots in the top five in the Edmonton Challenge men’s main draw entry list are top-seeded Adrian Carambula and Alex Ranghieri of Italy and fourth-seeded Marco Grimalt and Esteban Grimalt of Chile.

Brazil is the only country besides the Netherlands to have three teams guaranteed in the main draw, with Evandro Gonçalves and Arthur Lanci seeded sixth, Vitor Felipe and Renato Lima seeded ninth and Pedro Solberg and Gustavo 'Guto' Carvalhaes 13^th.

The other eight teams guaranteed in the men’s main draw in Edmonton are Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrián Gavira, USA’s Tri Bourne/Chaim Schalk, Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov/Eduard Reznik, Cuba’s Jorge Alayo/Noslen Diaz, Italy’s Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava, USA's Trevor Crabb/Theo Brunner, Australia’s Thomas Hodges/Zach Schubert and Canada’s Arram Chambers/Liam Kopp.

The Netherlands will have a fourth team in action in Edmonton, but this one will start in the qualifier. Seeded third among the 32 teams that will fight for the eight spots in play in the main draw, Rio 2016 Olympian Christiaan Varenhorst and new partner Leon Luini will be playing just their second tournament together.

The 48 men’s teams (16 in the main draw and 32 in the qualifier) entered in the Edmonton Challenge represent 27 countries from four continents – North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Among the 96 players, there are 27 Olympians.

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