With catastrophic floods hitting the region, the players at the 2023 Beach Tennis World Championships tried to keep their focus on court.

Play finally got underway in Cesenatico on Thursday – two days later than planned – as the brutal rain that has battered north-eastern Italy with fatal consequences eased.

Because of the freak weather, players were forced to compete in back-to-back matches on Thursday as organisers attempted to play catch up on the schedule.

Italy’s residents have had little to cheer about over the past few days, but the home crowd were in full voice as Peter Campedelli and Giacomo Gambellini pulled off an astonishing first-round win to knock out No. 2 seeds Andre Baran and Nikita Burmakin 7-5 6-7(4) 14-12.

The Italian pair proved that performance was no fluke by backing it up with a straight-sets win against Mikael Alessi and Marco Faccini to book their place in the quarter-finals.

In the men’s draw, the rest of the Top 8 pairings progressed as you would expect, with top seeds Michele Cappelletti and Antomi Ramos Viera looking particularly strong with a brace of quick victories to book their place in the last eight.

“It was hard, honestly,” said Cappelletti afterwards. “I live here, I come from here. We have never had a crisis like this one. It’s tough to find the right words because it was not just about the rain, but the risk – people have died, people lost their houses.

“The last couple of days was something that has never happened before. It’s hard, but we are here, and we are in the quarter-finals.”

There were more high-profile losses in the women’s draw as three of the Top 8 seeds failed to make it through to the quarter-finals at the World Championships.

No. 2 pairing Sofia Cimatti and Nicole Nobile – both of whom have a great record of making it through to the latter stages of this competition – were felled in the first round this year after Brazilian duo Samantha Barijan and Isadora Pansani Simoes clinched a match tiebreak 11-9.

Flaminia Daina and Eva Fernandez Palos, seeded fifth, were also knocked out in the opening round, losing 7-5 3-6 10-6 to Ariadna Costa Graell and Elena Francesconi. The eighth seeds Giulia Trippa and Veronica Visani were also taken down in the first round, falling 6-2 6-2 to the Romani sisters.

One pair that progressed unscathed was top seeds and defending champions two years on the trot Giulia Gasparri and Ninny Valentini. The No. 1 pair admitted to finding it hard to focus on their matches when there was a natural disaster in their homeland, but they remain on track to claim a third consecutive world title.

Gasparri said: “We tried to do our best on the court. This tournament is at the end of two months full of beach tennis, so we are tired, but we will do our best.”