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A high calibre of skills and beautiful weather greeted both players and crowds for this weekend's Mauao Beach Volleyball Grand Slam in Mount Maunganui.

Volleyball Bay of Plenty administrator Maria Woods says the only thing that's upstaging today's beautiful weather has been the quality of the volleyball on display.

The Mauao Beach Volleyball Grand Slam is taking place on Mount Maunganui's main beach today and tomorrow. Photo: Chris Callinan

'Today is going really well, the weather has held out and we have a very high calibre of teams playing so it's looking good.

'The crowds were a bit slow to show up this morning because of the road closures but we had a good turn out this afternoon which has been great.”

The grand slam is split into two grades, with more experienced players competing against each other in the challenger grade, with the up and coming volleyball players going at it in the satellite grade.

Within the challenger grade there are 24 men's teams – a big increase on last year's 10 teams – and 16 women's teams, while in the satellite grade there are five men's and women's teams.

Bay of Plenty teams makes up a large chunk of the competition, with the other teams travelling from around the country, as well as Australia and America, for the Grand Slam.

'The Bay of Plenty teams have been playing really strong this weekend, you only need to watch them in action to see how strong this region is at volleyball.”

'I haven't been able to figure out whether the Bay is strong at beach volleyball because we have great facilities, or because we simply have those facilities.”

Maria says teams will complete their round robin matches today, with the quarter finals taking place from 9am tomorrow.

The women's challenger grade final would then take place from 1pm, with the men's final starting at about 2pm.