Life's a Te Rapa beach

Entries for the second edition of the Hamilton Open beach volleyball tournament are drawing some top players, especially in the women's division.

The Saturday and Sunday, February 4 and 5 event - to be played at a specially-created show court at Hamilton Lake, as well as the Te Rapa Beach Volleyball Centre - is one of four legs in the New Zealand Pro-Beach Tour series. Other tournaments are at Karapiro, Mairangi Bay and Mount Maunganui.

Four women's teams ranked in the Top 50 in the world plan to play Hamilton, led by 7th-ranked Dutch combination of Sanne Keizer and Marleen Van Iersel.

Keizer (26) and Van Iersel (23) scored their first World Tour win with a victory in last year's Shanghai Open, following that up with a back-to-back victory in the Myslowice Open in Poland, and another podium finish in Austria. They are viewed as an up-and-coming team with one of the best chances to challenge the dominant Brazilian and USA combinations.

Other world-ranked women's teams entered in the 16-team main draw are Mullins/Dampney (UK, 34th); Meppelink/Van Gestel (Netherlands 46th) and Boulton/Johns (UK 50th).

The women's event is so strong, that teams from the USA, Vanuatu, Zimbabwe and Cook Islands will be required to play in qualifying before the main event.

International men's entries have been received from the USA and Cook Islands.

A minimum of the four top-ranked New Zealand teams will also go directly into the main draw, which is likely to include Hamilton's Hannah Croad, currently the top-ranked Kiwi player.

With entries not yet closed, the Hamilton Open has already exceeded the level of the inaugural event and organisers are hopeful that further entries will add to the standard.