From today until 19 July, inside Budapest's Városliget — the big park next to Heroes' Square — Europe's strangest beach volleyball tournament is under way. Eight men's teams, eight women's, courts built in the middle of a city park, and a rulebook beach volleyball never invented: it borrowed it from tennis.
It works. And it is, to my mind, the smartest thing this sport has done in years.
Two courts, two pairs, one point
Beach volleyball has a structural problem whenever it tries to do national teams: a pair is two people. You cannot build the drama of Italy vs France with two players a side — that's an individual match with a flag stitched on. The CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup answers it the Davis Cup way: every country brings two pairs. When two nations meet, two matches run simultaneously on adjacent courts. Win both, the point is yours.
The good part arrives at 1-1. That's the golden set, first to 15, and the coach can pick freely from the four athletes on the bench. Send the original pairs back out, or blend them — take one team's defender and the other's attacker and field a duo that has never played together. These calls get made in three minutes, in front of everyone, and sometimes they are spectacularly wrong. For a spectator it's the best moment of the four days.
In Budapest the eight nations per gender split into two pools of four. Pools on 16 and 17, quarter-finals across 17 and 18, semis and finals on 18 and 19. Getting there meant a qualifying road that opened in May in Protaras, Cyprus: 25 federations entered on the men's side, 21 on the women's. Eight and eight are left.
Latvia has fewer than two million people. It is the world champion.
If you want one reason to watch, it's in the women's draw. Latvia comes to Budapest ranked number one in the world, with Tina Graudiņa and Anastasija Samoilova, who took the world title in Adelaide in November 2025 — the first senior world crown in the country's history, across both genders.
A country the size of Milan dominating an Olympic sport is no accident. The Latvian federation made a call almost nobody makes: instead of spreading money across a wide pyramid, it concentrated everything on a handful of pairs, coached by the same people for years. In football that strategy gets you laughed at. In beach volleyball, where a national team is literally two humans and a sand court, it's arithmetic: four strong athletes are enough to be a continental power.
Which is exactly where the Davis format turns cruel on Latvia. A nation with two brilliant pairs counts for the same as one with a single great pair and nothing behind it. The second pair weighs as much as the first. That's not a footnote: it's why countries with deep benches — the Netherlands of Boermans and Brouwer, Italy itself — have a road here they would never get at a World Championship.
What the winner actually takes home
The continental trophy, first. But the thing that really moves national teams is the other one: a pair from the winning nation qualifies straight for the Düsseldorf Euros, opening 30 July at the Rochus Club. Eleven days after the Budapest final.
Put bluntly: there's a shortcut in here. In a season that runs from Cyprus to Hungary to Germany in two and a half months, skipping a qualifying round is worth energy, travel and — for athletes outside the world top ten — the difference between playing and watching. It's the kind of prize that changes how a Thursday-afternoon golden set gets played.
Italy, and a seeding that tells you little
Italy arrives lopsided. The women are among the favourites: Valentina Gottardi and Reka Orsi Toth go in as top seeds, Giada Scampoli and Claudia Bianchi as second seeds, both in Pool A. Two pairs at that level, in a tournament where the second counts as much as the first, is a starting position few nations hold.
The men's picture is different: Samuele Cottafava and Gianluca Dal Corso are seeded 11, Marco Viscovich and Davide Borraccino 12. Numbers that scare nobody, on paper. Except that in Pool B those numbers only go so far — in a nations format you don't have to beat the ranking, you have to win two matches out of two against one specific country, or reach the golden set and hope your coach nails the combination. It isn't quite the same sport. The draw is on EuroVolley TV, the CEV's official stream, free.
There's a thread running from this tournament to the golden age of Italian indoor volleyball: the sand draws from the same pool as the gym, and several of Italy's beach players came up through it. The difference is that beach volleyball, as an adult, is easier to play than to watch — you need four people, a public court and an hour of daylight. If the urge hits, on PlaySportMate you can find who plays near you or slot into a group that already plays. The rest is sand.
FAQ
Where can I watch the Beach Volley Nations Cup 2026?
The Budapest final, from 16 to 19 July 2026, streams on EuroVolley TV, the CEV's official platform. Live draws and results sit on the dedicated men's and women's competition portals, updated match by match.
How does the Nations Cup format work?
Each country fields two pairs per gender. When two nations meet, two matches run at the same time: win both and you take the point. At 1-1 it goes to a golden set to 15 points, and here comes the fun part — the coach can put any combination of the four available athletes on the sand.
What is at stake in Budapest?
The continental team title, plus a direct ticket to the Düsseldorf Euros for one pair from the winning nation. Those Euros open on 30 July at the Rochus Club, so the winner banks its qualification with eleven days to spare.
Why is Latvia so strong in beach volleyball?
It has fewer than two million people, and in November 2025 Tina Graudiņa and Anastasija Samoilova won the world title in Adelaide — the country's first senior world crown in either gender. The federation poured its resources into a handful of pairs rather than spreading them thin, and in beach volleyball — where a national team is two people, not twelve — that choice pays.