It marks the first time a nation has held the World Tour Finals for a second time, with the northern German city set to welcome capacity crowds and the world's elite beach volleyball players between August 14 and 19, in what will be the most prestigious tournament of the 2018 season.

Last season 66,000 fans packed the Rothenbaum Stadium for five days of competition where the $100,000 (£75,000/€85,000) top prize and the gold medals went to the United States' Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena and Germany's reigning world and Olympic champions Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst.

The American pair Lucena and Dalhausser stunned newly crowned world champions André Loyola Stein and Evandro Gonçalves Oliveira Junior, of Brazil, to lift the men's title, but the story of the week undoubtedly belonged to Ludwig and Walkenhorst.

Just two weeks after claiming their first world title in Vienna, Hamburg's finest - who had missed a large chunk of the 2017 season through injury - edged a dramatic women's final, beating Brazilian challengers Agatha Bednarczuk and teenage sensation Eduarda "Duda" Santos Lisboa in the women's final to claim gold.

"We're thrilled to hear that the World Tour Finals are coming to Hamburg again," said a delighted Ludwig.

The Olympic champion added: "Beach volleyball is hugely popular throughout Germany and especially in Hamburg. 

"It's a place we call home, we love it here and the support we received in the past two tournaments was unbelievable. 

"I am sure the fans will come out in their numbers again to support us. 

"We can't wait."

The 2018 World Tour Finals will be the fourth edition of beach volleyball's end-of-season showpiece, which has previously been held in Fort Lauderdale in 2015 and Toronto in 2016 prior to the 2017 event in Hamburg.

The World Tour Finals in Hamburg will bring the curtain down on the 2018 beach volleyball season, during which the world's best beach volleyball athletes compete at three five-star Beach Major Series tournaments, in Fort Lauderdale, in February, Gstaad, Switzerland in July and Vienna, Austria, in July and August.