17 July 2026

If you think beach volleyball is all about sunshine, six-packs and casually knocking a ball back and forth, you missed the last two weeks. A duo won a title one week after crashing out of qualifying, a 36-year-old former world champion wept with his kids on centre court, and a former NBA player dug his way from the qualifiers all the way to the final. Let us sort through the chaos – from Berlin’s after-work leagues to the Swiss mountains.

Berlin & Brandenburg

Berlin already saw the grand stage of the German Beach Tour back in June – but the Funkhaus sand still echoes today. Of all people, Berlin’s champions Lorenz/Rietschel carried their momentum to Munich and promptly reached another final there (more on that shortly). That is what exporting form looks like, Berlin style.

On the local courts there is no hint of a summer break. The Beach Tour Berlin-Brandenburg is running, and anyone who would rather play than watch will find an open net every weekend at the C-Cup tournaments at BeachMitte – from ambitious hobby teams to hungry up-and-comers. And after the Youth Beach Series in early summer, a whole generation is pushing through that masters the jump serve before it gets a driving licence.

Germany

And then Munich – two weekends back to back, both of them full of mischief. At the first tour stop (2–5 July), the freshly assembled duo of Nils Ehlers and Lui Wüst delivered the finest act of defiance of the season. First the Bavarian underdogs Kaminski/Sambale knocked the top seeds out in front of a home crowd; then Ehlers/Wüst fought back through the losers’ bracket and claimed the title in a three-set thriller against Berlin’s Lorenz/Rietschel (24:26, 21:19, 15:11). The twist: only a week earlier, at their very first tournament together in Gstaad, the same pair had failed to even get through qualifying. From qualifier exit to champions in seven days – „the most important thing wasn’t technical, it was mental”, as Wüst put it. That Ehlers’ former partner and Olympic silver medalist Clemens Wickler is meanwhile nursing his shoulder in Pesaro only makes the story juicier.

The women, by contrast, offered zero drama and pure dominance: Lea Kunst and Melanie Paul defended their Munich title without dropping a single set – 21:19, 21:18 in the final. For Kunst it was already her sixth triumph on Germany’s top tournament series, the fourth alongside Paul. „It was important to find our flow again – that gives us a lot of confidence”, said Paul, who grew up in Chile and is aiming with Kunst for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

A week later (Munich II, 9–12 July) the script flipped entirely. Elea Beutel and Paula Schürholz, knocked out in qualifying at the first stop, delivered the perfect reply and beat Austria’s Klinger sisters for the title after losing the first set (21:23, 25:23, 15:8) – already their second GBT win of the season. „It’s amazing, a little unreal”, beamed Beutel. Among the men, the French wildcard duo Chouikh-Barbez/Genevieve-Gardoque became the new crowd favourites and took the title. The tour returns only on 13–16 August in Hamburg – and then comes the big one: after 33 years at Timmendorfer Strand, the German Championship moves to Dortmund for the first time in 2026, where up to 6,500 fans a day are expected at Revierpark Wischlingen.

World

While the Germans were celebrating in Munich, Gstaad hosted perhaps the most beautiful tournament of the calendar – legendary, with 400,000 dollars in prize money and a cowbell for a trophy. Among the men, a veteran made history: 36-year-old Alexander Brouwer, Olympic bronze medalist in 2016 and world champion in 2013, finally won his first Gstaad gold with Stefan Boermans at the 16th time of asking – in a three-set final (26:28, 21:17, 15:11) against a US duo that provided the tournament’s oddity: silver medalist Chase Budinger is a former NBA player who, with Trevor Crabb, had battled all the way from qualifying to the final. „No words! A childhood dream coming true”, stammered an utterly overwhelmed Brouwer, two of his children on the court beside him.

The women, meanwhile, offered pure certainty: Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher won Gstaad for the third time in a row – seven wins in seven matches and just a single set dropped across the whole tournament. In the all-American final they swept aside 2023 world champion Kelly Cheng and her partner Megan Kraft in straight sets. „That was just absolutely unreal”, enthused Cruz. From a German perspective, fifth place for Svenja Müller and Cinja Tillmann was at least something among the women – the German men all went out in qualifying. There is barely time for revenge: the next Elite16 already kicks off in Rio de Janeiro from 29 July to 2 August.

All that drama making you want to leap into the sand yourself? If you want to learn (or finally properly practise) the perfect dig, the clean set and the sneaky cut, our beach volleyball camps for beginners are exactly the right place – net, sand and good vibes included, just bring your own sunscreen. Until the next update: get down to the court and into the sand!