A top-three finish at the Edmonton Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour was enough for Italy’s Paolo Nicolai & Samuele Cottafava to reclaim their position in the top 10 of the men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking. Meanwhile, gold medallists Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos of Portugal gained eight positions to number 26, their highest ranking so far.

Nicolai & Cottafava netted 260 of the 720 points that came with their Edmonton bronze towards a new total of 5,660 points, overtaking Spain’s Pablo Herrera & Adrian Gavira (5,480) and United States’ Miles Partain & Andrew Benesh (5,564) on the way up from number 12 to number 10.

Pedrosa & Campos’s historic success brought them 800 points, of which they pocketed 460 to rise eight positions from their previous high 34^th to new high 26^th on a total of 3,980 points.

While silver medallists Mathias Berntsen & Hendrik Mol of Norway picked up as many points (720) in Edmonton as they dropped with the expiration of their Agadir Challenge silver points from a year ago and stayed put in position 15, the fourth semifinalists in Canada last week, Brazil’s Pedro Solberg & Gustavo Carvalhaes (Guto) rocketed 27 spots up to number 54, with four Beach Pro Tour events now behind their back.

All four men’s teams that finished with fifth-place results in Edmonton made substantial leaps up the chart, most vividly the new Dutch pairing of Christiaan Varenhorst & Leon Luini, who are up to number 147 after only two tournaments played together.

Austria’s Martin Ermacora & Philipp Waller surged 25 spots from number 84 to number 59, Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov & Eduard Reznik climbed 10 positions from number 37 to number 27, and France’s Arthur Canet & Teo Rotar moved up eight spots from number 40 to number 32.

Among the women’s medallists in Edmonton, only third-placed Barbora Hermannova & Marie-Sara Stochlova of Czechia managed to improve their standing in the World Ranking. They actually lost more points with the expiration of last year’s Agadir Challenge silver than they gained with last week’s bronze, but still made it from number 20 up to number 19, overtaking China’s Xia Xinyi & Lin MeiMei, who are no longer playing together and whose points from last year’s gold at the Leuven Futures also expired.

Edmonton champions Barbara Seixas & Carol Solberg of Brazil and runners-up Marta Menegatti & Valentina Gottardi of Italy net-gained only 40 points each to stay in fifth and tenth place in the ranking, respectively.

Switzerland’s Esmee Bobner & Zoe Verge-Depre, placed fourth in Canada last week, also shifted one position up to number 16. Three of the four quarterfinal losers also improved their rankings. While USA’s Betsi Flint & Julia Scoles stayed in 11^th place, Slovenia’s Tjasa Kotnik & Tajda Lovsin climbed from number 28 to number 25, Austria’s Dorina Klinger & Ronja Klinger ascended from number 36 to 32, and German stars Louisa Lippmann & Laura Ludwig jumped 19 spots, from number 74 to number 55.

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