Beach volleyball is played by teams of two on a 8m x 16m sand court. With just two players per team, athletes need to be fit, fast and multiskilled to cover the whole court. Teams dig, set and spike the ball over the net to try and ground it in the opponent's court. 24 teams per gender are split into 6 pools of 4 for round-robin matches. The top 2 per pool and 2 best 3rd place finishers progress to the knockout quarter-finals. Games are best of3 sets, ‘ with the first 2 sets played to 21 points and the 3rd set if needed played to 15. Teams must have a 2-point advantage to win a set.
