After staging a truly magnificent World Championships in 2011, Rome will welcome back the world's top teams for a Grand Slam event from June 13-17. The Italian capital hosted its first men's World Tour event in 2009 but in 2010 the tournament was upgraded to a Grand Slam and Italy welcomed the women back for the first time since 2006 when Brazilians Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa França upset American Olympic and world champions Misty May-Treanor and Kerry Walsh in Modena. USA's Jen Kessy and April Ross matched their compatriots in the women's event in 2010, beating Sara Goller and Laura Ludwig of Germany in the final as Brazil's Maria Antonelli and Talita Antunes won bronze. Juliana and Larissa then claimed their first World Championship title last year, beating American rivals May-Treanor and Walsh in the women's event as Czech Republic’s Lenka Hajeckova and Hana Klapalova took bronze. Rome is Italy's largest and most populous city with over 2.7-million residents. Located in the central-western portion of the Italian peninsula on the Tiber river, Rome's history as a city spans over two and a half thousand years, as one of the founding cities of Western Civilization. Even outside of the history of the Roman Empire, Rome has a significant place in the story of Christianity up to the present day as the home of the Roman Catholic Church. As one of the few major European cities that escaped World War II relatively unscathed, central Rome remains essentially Renaissance and Baroque in character. Rome is the third-most-visited tourist destination in the European Union.