The Thailand resort city of Phuket will host its sixth FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Tour event from November 1-6 as the 2011 international beach volleyball calendar concludes on Karon Beach in a women’s-only event.  With the men’s season finale at the end of August at a double gender event in China, the women’s schedule concludes with the event in Thailand. in Asia as China hosts the world’s best players a week before Phuket with an October 26-31 stop in Sanya.  Olympic medal winners and world champions have won the previous four Phuket events as teams from China and the United States have filled the podium along with pairs from Germany, Russia, Italy and Brazil. Phuket’s initial international Beach Volleyball event was in 2005 for a FIVB Challenger stop won by Eiko Koizumi and Shinako Tanaka of Japan as the tournament was established to help promote tourism in the Tsunami-hit areas. China’s Chen Xue and Xi Zhang captured the first Swatch stop in Phuket by defeating compatriots Jia Tian and Jie Wang in 2006 before Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, who placed third in the 2006 Phuket event after losing to Xue and Zhang in the semi-finals, earned the top podium position in 2007 by defeating American rivals Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs.  Jen Kessy and April Ross, the 2009 world champions, captured the next two Phuket gold medals by defeating American rivals in the finals.  In denying a United States Phuket podium sweep in 2009, Maria Bratkova and Evgenia Ukolova became the first Russian women’s team to win a World Tour medal by defeating Americans Lauren Fendrick and Ashley Ivy. In 2010 a returning Kerri Walsh, who had only played one World Tour event in Sanya prior to the tournament, claimed her first gold since giving birth at the beginning of 2010 with Nicole Branagh by beating Italy's Valeria Rosso and Marta Menegatti in the Azzuri's first ever final. Meanwhile Brazilian siblings Maria Clara and Carol Salgado scored the bronze. Below Walsh (left) and Branagh on the podium.