Kish Island hosts the last World Tour tournament before the Fort Lauderdale Major

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Italians Alex Ranghieri and Marco Caminati are among the top teams in Kish Island

The Fort Lauderdale Major is just around the corner and while several beach volleyball teams have already arrived in Florida, others still have a final stop on their way before they head to the Sunshine State to compete in the first five-star event of the World Tour season in 2018.

Coming from 12 different countries, 19 men’s teams that will be showcasing their skills in South Florida in a week-time are set to compete in the World Tour three-start tournament in Kish Island, Iran, from Tuesday to Saturday.

For these teams, the event in Iran is a much-welcomed opportunity to make the final adjustments in their games before they face the best of the best in the #FTLMajor. That’s definitely the case for Latvians Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs.

The top-seeded team for the tournament in Kish Island, they have completed a training camp in Hurghada, Egypt, and are looking forward to their second gold medal of the season after their victory at the four-star event in The Hague in January.

Besides the Latvians, other two teams which are guaranteed in the main draw in Fort Lauderdale will also compete in Iran - #FTLMajor wildcards Alex Ranghieri and Marco Caminati of Italy and Casey Patterson and Stafford Slick of the United States.

The Iranian island will also be the stage for the debut of the new American team of Trevor Crabb and Skylar Del Sol. Crabb started the year with veteran Sean Rosenthal, but their partnership ended right after the tournament in The Hague.

It will also be the first World Tour tournament for Russian Olympian Konstantin Semenov after he returned to beach volleyball after playing indoors for one year. Him and partner Ilya Leshukov will start in the qualification tournament, where they will compete for one of the last eight spots in the main draw.