Reigning champions and Olympians will be among the teams competed for main draw spots on Tuesday

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Alvaro Filho and Saymon Barbosa will start from qualification in Fort Lauderdale for the second straight year

The 2018 Beach Major Series will be open in great fashion as 64 teams will take the courts of the Fort Lauderdale Major this Tuesday to compete for the last eight spots in each gender in Florida's main draw.

It will be a very competitive qualification tournament with several Olympians and World Tour medal winners competing against each other for the right to play against the best in the world from Wednesday to Sunday.

The men’s qualification tournament will be highlighted by the reigning Fort Lauderdale Major champions Alvaro Filho and Saymon Barbosa of Brazil. As in 2017, the team will start its campaign in the qualification tournament, where they will face China’s Yanwei Wang/Chaowei Zhou. Another meeting between the two countries will feature the new Brazilian team of Pedro Solberg/George Wanderley and Chinese Peng Gao and Yang Li.

The United States will also feature two male teams in the qualification tournament with Billy Allen/Ryan Doherty matching up with China’s Likejiang Ha/Jiaxin Wu and country-quota winners Trevor Crabb and Skylar Del Sol going up against Austria’s Martin Ermacora/Moritz Pristauz.

Christiaan Varenhorst and Jasper Bouter of the Netherlands are also set to compete in the qualifier

Dutch World Championship silver medalist Christiaan Varenhorst will also be in the qualification tournament, as he and new partner Jasper Bouter play against Canada’s Fiodar Kazhamiaka/Sergiy Grabovskyy.

Fresh from winning the World Tour three-star tournament in Kish Island last Saturday, Poland’s Mariusz Prudel and Jakub Szalankiewciz will also have to fight their way through the qualification tournament. They will meet Switzerland’s Florian Breer and Yves Haussener in the first round.

In the women’s tournament, top-seeded Taiana Lima and Carol Horta will try to keep their good momentum as the temporary partnership prevailed in the Brazilian country-quota on Monday. The team will play Serbia’s Milena Matic and Marija Milosevic in first round.

The initial stage of qualification will also be marked by the debut of Sanne Keizer in the Beach Major Series. The Dutch Olympian resumed her career in 2018 after retiring in 2013 and will play for the first time in a Major event. Partner Madelein Meppelink and her are set to face Japan’s Sayaka Mizoe and Suzuka Hashimoto.

Italian star Marta Menegatti and partner Laura Giombini will debut against a Canadian team

Also keep an eye on Italian star Marta Menegatti and her journey to reclaim her place among the best in the world after two tough seasons. She will be pairing with Laura Giombini, her teammate at the Rio 2016 Olympics, and they will meet Canada’s Taylor Pischke and Jamie Broder in the first round.

Home teams of Emily Day/Britanny Hochevar and Betsi Flint/Kelley Larsen will also be in contention for the coveted main draw berths. The veterans will start their campaigns against Switzerland’s Nicole Eiholzer/Elena Steinemann while the promising young duo will be tested against Colombian sisters Andrea and Claudia Galindo.

The full schedule of the qualification tournament is available here. You can watch all the matches live on BeachStream - click here to register.