Alexander: In beach volleyball, Manhattan Beach is the ultimate
MANHATTAN BEACH — As far as beach volleyball’s professionals are concerned, the real estate by the pier here might as well be Yankee Stadium – the old one – with sand. Or Lambeau Field, or the departed (and not so dearly) Boston Garden, or the old Montreal Forum … you get the picture.
Or maybe it’s even bigger.
“They consider it like the Wimbledon of beach volleyball,” said Kellie Kolinske, who teamed with Sarah Hughes (now Sarah Pavan) to win last year’s Manhattan Beach Open women’s title.
“It just has a different feel, a different atmosphere. The crowds, usually starting Saturday, Sunday, there’s so many people, there’s so many teams. It’s a really deep draw.”
This is where legends are made and Hall of Famers, or at least Walk of Famers, minted. For proof, you can just walk down the pier and look at the plaques embedded in the cement, honoring each year’s champions.
They have been playing the Manhattan Beach Open since 1960 on the men’s side and 1966 on the women’s. The list of winners constitutes a history of this peculiarly SoCal sport, including athletes who helped define it – Sinjin Smith, Karch Kiraly, Phil Dalhausser among the men, Holly McPeak, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings among the women – as well as athletes known for other athletic pursuits.
Among the men’s winners in Manhattan Beach have been two members of John Wooden’s UCLA national championship basketball teams, John Vallely (with Ron Van Hagen in 1969) and Greg Lee (with Jim Menges in 1975 and ’78). Another former Bruin, Keith Erickson, teamed with Gene Selznick and finished fourth in ’66.
Still another ex-basketball player, former Arizona Wildcat and seven-year NBA veteran Chase Budinger, finished second here in 2019 and ’21 and is part of the third-seeded team this year with Miles Evans. They were among the eight men’s teams to win both of their matches Friday. So did Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner, the No. 1 seeds, along with No. 2 seeds Tri Bourne – who teamed with Crabb to win last year’s title – and Chaim Schalk and No. 4 Taylor Crabb, Trevor’s brother, and Taylor Sander.
This tournament is “the mecca of beach volleyball, or I should say American beach volleyball,” said Phil Dalhausser, who has won this tournament seven times with three different partners. “It’s even more special because of that. Everybody out here knows how to play. They recognize a good play. They applaud for a good play. So that just adds to everything.”
It is, for sure, a different atmosphere from AVP events in other places, said Trevor Crabb, who is going for his fourth consecutive Manhattan Beach title with his third different partner. He and Brunner will be going for a sweep of this year’s South Bay events, having won in Hermosa Beach last month.
“There’s so many factors that make it” special, Crabb said, “like you got the bars right there for all the crowd to go up to in between matches and then a nice ocean dip in between matches as well.”
Has he heard it from some of those fans after a cocktail or two?
“Oh, for sure,” he said. “Yeah, you know, that makes it even more fun when everyone’s having a good time and enjoying themselves.”
There have been only three occasions since 1960 when the Manhattan Beach Open wasn’t played. One, of course, was 2020 because of COVID. In 1997, a coastal environmental group, the South Bay Coastal Defense Alliance, filed an injunction that prevented AVP from holding the tournament in Manhattan Beach in June, so the organization moved it a few miles down the coast to Hermosa Beach as a show of defiance. And in 2010, the AVP shut down the tour in August because of financial problems and a lack of investors that would allow it to complete the season, scrubbing both the Manhattan Beach and Hermosa events that year.
This is Manhattan Beach’s 66th men’s event and 55th women’s event, and earlier this summer Hermosa hosted its 55th men’s event and 54th women’s tournament. No place else has hosted the sport’s top events this often, and one reason for its popularity is that the South Bay is the home turf – or, if you will, home sand – for the vast majority of the top players.
“Pretty much like I would say 90% of the players live in this area,” Kolinske said. “We train in Manhattan, Hermosa, train with each other, against each other. So to have a tournament here and not have to deal with going to LAX, getting on a plane, travel costs, it’s so nice.
“I just rode my bike up to the tournament, and nothing beats that.”
Yeah, this tournament is popular. There were 108 men’s teams registered to compete in this weekend’s tournament, 84 in the qualifier (for eight main draw spots) and 24 more in the main draw. There have been 35 AVP events with more than 100 entrants, and 11 of them have come in Manhattan Beach, including 2019, last year and this year. The women’s field had 73 teams, the most on the circuit since 2019 in Manhattan Beach (96) for spots in a 32-team main draw.
“I was talking to someone and (it was noted that) half the field of qualifiers are people from out of state,” Dalhausser said. “They’re like, ‘We just need one good day and we’re in the Manhattan Beach Open,’ you know? What other sport can you do that in?
“You know, you can’t play a qualifier to play the Lakers.”
And lo and behold, that one good day can turn into so much more. On the women’s side, Katie Speier (who lives in Hermosa Beach) and Torrey Van Winden (of Napa) not only swept through qualifying but won twice in the main draw Friday and will remain in the winner’s bracket to begin Saturday.
Meanwhile, the 32nd seed, Chloe Loreen and Natalie Robinson – both of whom reside in the Seattle area – upset the top-seeded duo of Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles, 21-19, 15-21, 15-12, the first time a No. 32 has ever beaten a No. 1 in a women’s draw on the AVP tour. They subsequently knocked off 16th seed Macy Jerger and Megan Rice as well so they, too, remain in the winner’s bracket going into Saturday’s matches.
More often, form holds. Trevor Crabb remembered his first appearance in this tournament in 2013, when he and brother Taylor were seeded No. 32 against top-seeded Dalhausser and Sean Rosenthal. “And now I’m the one seed playing the 32 seed,” he said. “It’s pretty, pretty awesome and cool to look at that.”
Ten years ago, the Crabbs won the first set of that first match 21-19 but dropped the next two. Friday, Trevor Crabb and Brunner took care of business quickly in their first two matches.
The goal is to get to Sunday, 1 p.m. for the men’s final and 2 p.m. for the women, weather (i.e. Hurricane Hilary) permitting. If this event truly is that important, maybe Mother Nature will at least hold off until it’s over.