Beach Volleyball World Championships: Donlin-Denaburg Take Driver's Seat in USA Race

Welcome to the Road to Adelaide, our series breaking down the race to qualifying for the 2025 Beach Volleyball World Championships, which will be held in Adelaide, Australia, November 14-23. Of the 48 teams who qualify for the World Championships, 25 are earned via points, the standings of which are determined by your best six finishes in the 2025 year up through October 5, which follows a Beach Pro Tour Challenge event in Mexico. There is a country quota of four teams per federation who can qualify.

Two events can change a lot in a World Championship race.

Two events did.

Prior to the Stare Jablonki Challenge on the last weekend of June, Julia Donlin and Lexy Denaburg were unranked in the World Championships standings. In four events, they had made just one quarterfinal, lost in the qualifier in another, and were swept out of the first round of playoffs in Ostrava. They were one of a glut of USA Volleyball teams battling in a peloton for the fourth and final USA spot in the World Championships, no one team standing out over the rest.

Then came Stare Jablonki.

Donlin and Denaburg alas made the breakthrough many expected of one of the most physical and athletic teams the U.S. has, finishing fourth. It wasn’t a podium, no, but it was enough for 680 points — their best finish to date — and a jump in the standings, a jump they’d build on the next week in Switzerland.

At the Gstaad Elite — Denaburg’s debut at the most majestic event in sports — they qualified for the second straight Elite, surviving a three-set scare against Lithuania’s Monika Paulikiene and Aine Raupelyte (15-21, 21-13, 15-9), and again built on it. They played well in a loss to Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw, exacted vengeance against Finland’s Taru Lahti and Niina Ahtiainen, the pair who knocked them out of the Quintana Roo Elite qualifier, eliminated a piping hot German team in Louisa Lippmann and Linda Bock, then ran out of gas against eventual champs Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher.

It was, suffice it to say, a lot of work for 600 points. But those 600 points proved invaluable, as Donlin and Denaburg vaulted from unranked to No. 13, nearly 400 points and seven slots ahead of their nearest USA Volleyball competitor in Kim Hildreth and Teegan Van Gunst. The entry points they’ve picked up will put them in contention to be straight into the main draw of the Montreal Elite and the Hamburg Elite in August, should they choose to skip AVP events in the name of World Champs points with three months remaining to punch their ticket to Adelaide.

Women’s Beach Volleyball World Championships Standings

Thamela Coradelli, Victoria Lopes, Brazil: 4980 (6)
Kristen Nuss, Taryn Brasher, USA: 4960 (5)
Carol Salgado, Rebecca Cavalcanti, Brazil: 4760 (6)
Anouk Verge-Depre, Zoe Verge-Depre, Switzerland: 4360 (6)
Terese Cannon, Megan Kraft, USA: 4140 (5)
Reka Orsi Toth, Valentina Gottardi, Italy: 4090 (6)
Tanja Huberli, Leona Kernen, Switzerland: 3880 (6)
Tina Graudina, Anastasija Samoilova, Latvia: 3840 (6)
Kelly Cheng, Molly Shaw, USA: 3620 (5)
Dorina Klinger, Ronja Klinger, Austria: 3516 (6)
Claudia Scampoli, Giada Bianchi, Italy: 3390 (6)
Clemence Vieira, Aline Chamereau, France: 3220 (6)
Julia Donlin, Lexy Denaburg, USA: 3100 (6)
Marketa Svozilova, Marie-Sara Stochlova, Czech Republic: 3080 (6)
Melissa Humana-Paredes, Brandie Wilkerson, Canada: 2880 (4)
Svenja Muller, Cinja Tillmann, Germany: 2860 (5)
Emi van Driel, Wies Bekhuis, Netherlands: 2840 (6)
Maryna Hladun, Tetiana Lazarenko, Ukraine: 2840 (6)
Taru Lahti, Niina Ahtiainen, Finland: 2820 (6)
Kim Hildreth, Teegan Van Gunst, USA: 2760 (6)
Hegeile Almeida Dos Santos, Vitoria de Souza, Brazil: 2720 (6)
Malgorzata Ciezkowska, Urszula Lunio, Poland: 2640 (6)
Michelle Valiente, Giuliana Poletti, Paraguay: 2628(6)
Daniela Alvarez, Tania Moreno, Spain: 2580 (6)
Lezana Placette, Alexia Richard, France: 2560 (6)
Taliqua Clancy, Jana Milutinovic, Australia: 2500 (6)
Konink, Schoon, Netherlands: 2420 (6)
Andressa Cavalcanti, Taina Silva, Brazil: 2380 (6)
Ana Patricia, Duda, Brazil: 2360 (3)

Men’s Beach Volleyball World Championships Standings

If two events were cause for celebration and drastic moves for Julia Donlin and Lexy Denaburg, one was enough for Sweden’s No. 2 pair of Jacob Holting-Nilsson and Elmer Andersson.

Just days prior to the Gstaad Elite, they didn’t even know if they’d play. They were stuck on the reserve list, hoping a handful of teams would pull out.

A handful did, including their own countrymen David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig, who withrew due to an ab injury, and Holting-Nilsson and Andersson were in.

And in.

And in some more.

Andersson and Holting-Nilsson engineered the most improbable result of the Beach Pro Tour’s 2025 season, running all the way to the finals after narrowly escaping pool, with a 20-18 third-set victory over Chaim Schalk and James Shaw. With one silver medal — they’d lose the final to Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan — Andersson and Holting-Nilsson jumped from unranked to No. 12 and nearly a lock to qualify for the World Champs. As critical as their World Champs standings boost, their entry points hopped a whopping 62 spots, putting them in excellent position to be directly into the main draw of Elites moving forward, with no good finishes to protect.

So if a lot can happen in two events, Sweden is example enough that Cinderella can get her ticket to the end-of-year ball in just one.

Below are the rest of the men’s beach volleyball world championships standings.