Valentina Gottardi is the 2025 Beach Pro Tour Server of the Year.
Honorable Mention
- Louisa Lippmann, Germany
- Victoria Lopes, Brazil
- Carol Salgado, Brazil
You can count on one hand, the number of players in beach volleyball who make their serve in appointment viewing.
Their names are Valentina Gottardi and Evandro Goncalves, and both are the 2025 Servers of the Year.
What makes it such must-watch VBTV? Because nobody hits a float serve quite like Gottardi. It comes with pace, dizzying movement and the potential for an explosive run of three, four, sometimes five straight points. If it is her unmatched power and spectacular angles that instill so much fear in her opponents when she is on offense, it is the speed and anxiety of simply fighting off her serve that does the same when she is at the service line.
On the year, Gottardi’s opponents were in system just 73 percent of the time, whereas the eight teams in the quarterfinals of the World Championships were all averaging well into the 80s. Per Beach Data, teams passed “very good” on only 39 percent of her serves, “good” on 32 percent, and either bad to outright aced the remaining 39 percent — a huge number. It was the central variably to Italy holding their opponents to a 56 percent sideout rate, lower, even, than Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher, who boast the Defensive Player of the Year.
In a recent poll, 56 percent of responders viewed serving as an offensive play, while 44 percent said it was a defensive aspect of the game.
With Valentina Gottardi, she’s always on offense.
2023 Best Server: Valentina Gottardi
2024 Best Server: Esmee Bobner
