Beach Volleyball

Major beach volleyball tournaments

Beach volleyball is a perfect recreation sport of sports world. Beach volleyball has been evolved from volleyball and has gain a special place in sports world.

History of beach volleyball

The history of beach volleyball can be traced back to the 1920s. It is believed that the game was started in Santa Monica, California (US) and slowly as it got popular there, it spread to Europe.

By 1960s, professional tournaments started taking place. One such beach volleyball tournament took place in France with prize money. That beach volleyball tournament in France was followed by the Manhattan Beach Open-a tournament equivalent of Wimbledon.

And now there are around 40 international beach volleyball tournaments played in a calendar year. The beach volleyball calendar for 2009 includes 14 Open tournaments for men and women respectively with 6 Grand Slams.

Difference between beach volleyball and volleyball

The two prominent differences between beach volleyball and volleyball are the surface and the team members. As the name suggests, beach volleyball is played on sand while volleyball is played on hard surface.

In beach volleyball, the numbers of players are just two instead of six players that form a team of volleyball. Apart from that most of the rules are same for both the games. In both forms of the game, a team scores a point if they smash the ball on their opponent's court and the team has to send ball across the net in three attempts by different players.