Montreux, Switzerland, September 6, 2018- Canadian Beach Volleyball star Melissa Humana-Paredes, who is working with the press team behind the scenes at the 33rd edition of the Montreux Volley Masters to provide new vlogging coverage, took some time off media duties on Thursday to seek an audience with one of the legends of the Volleyball game, current Turkish National Team coach Giovanni Guidetti.
25-year-old Humana-Paredes has enjoyed a successful 2018 season in the Beach game, with a Gold in the Commonwealth Games and having topped the podium with teammate Sarah Pavan at the Porec and Gstaad Major events. She also scooped the personal accolade of Best Setter in the 2018 FIVB Beach Volleyball Awards, to go with being named the FIVB Top Female Rookie of 2015 and Most Improved Player of the 2017 season.
And with Italian coach Guidetti having been responsible for nurturing the talent of some of Volleyball’s best setters, including Naz Aydemir Akyol, Kathleen Weiss, and Laura Dijkema during his coaching career, Humana-Paredes was keen to take the chance to learn from one of the best mentors in the business to gauge whether she has any potential future in the traditional code of the game by joining him for a training session on the main court at Salle Omnisports du Pierrier on Thursday.
The two worlds of the Volleyball game have collided in positive fashion before, with many Beach Volleyball players looking to integrate aspects from the indoor game onto their style of play on the sand, and vice versa for those who have made the switch from the Beach game to traditional Volleyball, and Humana-Paredes was not about to pass up on the opportunity to learn from one of the game’s more revered figures out on the Swiss Riviera.
Although, any inkling that Humana-Paredes may be considering switching Beach Volleyball for the traditional game will be of little concern to the Canadian at present, as her mind begins to turn towards preparing for her next major event, the FIVB World Tour Four Star showpiece in Yangzhou, China; the first-round of qualification events for the 2020 Olympics. What if for sure, however, is that heeding Guidetti’s advice here will certainly do little harm to her chances.