THE 37th Weymouth Beach Volleyball Classic takes place this weekend on Weymouth Beach, with action beginning tomorrow (2pm).

The event is the most prestigious event on the UK Beach Tour calendar and will take place across eight courts with a main centre court at the Pavilion end of the beach.

The event could not take place last year because of Covid-19 restrictions and this year there will be a large number of mitigations in place to ensure that players, officials and spectators can enjoy the event safely.

One victim of this has been the very popular Nantes charity event this evening, the large numbers involved made it impossible to run in a safe manner.

Another issue is that the grandstand seating has to be limited to 50 per cent capacity.

Play will begin tomorrow afternoon with a men’s and women’s qualifying event.

The main draw will start at 9am on Saturday and then there will be early round action throughout the day with music and full commentary throughout on the centre court.

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On Sunday play starts again at 9am with the quarter-finals and will build to the women’s final at 3pm followed by the men’s final.

There are a number of star players to watch out for over the weekend including reigning women’s champions Jess Grimson and Vicky Palmer who represented England in the Commonwealth Games in 2018 but have now split as a partnership.

This year they will be playing with different partners, Palmer with Alana Snow and Grimson with Daisy Mumby.

Aga Adamek and Giulia Rastelli – the 2019 runners-up – are back and will have a strong chance of reaching the final again.

In the men’s event Issa Batrane will be aiming to set a new men’s record this weekend when he tries to win the title for the fourth time in a row – something which has never been achieved before.

He will be partnered this time by Freddie Bialokoz.

Batrane’s partner in 2019, Phil Smith, joins up with Aden Tutton who won the title in 2015 and played indoor volleyball for Australia in the 2012 Olympics.

There are a number of local teams taking part in Friday’s qualifier. Probably the team with the greatest chance of qualifying are Ryan Stout and Sam Groom who comfortably lead the local rankings.

The Classic is organised by Weymouth Beach Volleyball Club and this year is being sponsored by We Are Weymouth.