Excluding the Olympic Games, beach volleyball’s most prestigious tournament takes place this weekend when the Manhattan Beach Open becomes the 55th men’s and 44th women’s professional beach volleyball tournament held on the golden sands of the South Bay city.
This year’s event marks the first of three tournaments in the Jose Cuervo Pro Beach Volleyball Series. With the support of USA Volleyball (USAV) and entertainment giant International Management Group (IMG), the three-day, double-elimination tournament will include live televised coverage of the finals on VERSUS (formerly Outdoors). Qualifying rounds will be held on Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. before 64 teams in each gender vie for $200,000, the largest domestic prize purse of 2011.
Main Draw action begins Friday at 8 a.m., Saturday at 8:30 a.m. and Sunday at 9:15 a.m. The women’s final is scheduled to start Sunday at 2:15 p.m. followed by the men’s championship match at 4 p.m.
Winners will have their names engraved on a permanent plaque placed on the Manhattan Beach Pier, a tradition that features the names of beach volleyball legends such as Karch Kiraly, Mike Dodd, Phil Dalhausser, Todd Rogers, Sinjin Smith, Randy Stoklos, Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh, Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs.
Redondo Beach resident Sean Scott and partner John Hyden should be the favorites to win the men’s title. The duo has captured five domestic championships this year beginning in May at the inaugural tournament of the National Volleyball League in Baltimore.
The team continued its winning ways by completing a sweep of the Corona Light Wide Open (CLWO) tour with a win last Sunday in Hermosa Beach.
After wins at Siesta Key, Fla., Seaside Heights, N.J. and Chicago, Scott and Hyden kept firing on all cylinders, jumping out to a 14-4 lead in the championship match as the team defeating Fred Souza and Rodrigo Monteiro 21-12, 21-12 to claim the Hermosa Beach title.
The team’s only hiccup came when Aaron Wachtfogel (Hermosa Beach) and Bill Strickland (Manhattan Beach) handed the eventual champions its only loss of the tournament by winning the first game 21-16 in a semifinal match.
Kristen Batt and Brooke Sweat have the an opportunity to see their names placed on the Manhattan Beach Pier after the tandem captured the women’s division in Hermosa Beach last weekend.
Seeded third, Batt and Sweat defeated Annett Davis and Priscilla Lima 21-18, 21-16 to capture the crown. Davis and Lima stunned top-seeds Jenny Kropp (Manhattan Beach) and Whitney Pavlik with a 21-17, 24-22 victory in the semifinals.
In the CLWO Men’s AA division, the Redondo Beach duo of Landon Tusiesiena and Jeffrey Dudlik were crowned champions.
Although the top U.S. players will be competing this week in the FIVB HP Beach Open in Hague, Netherlands, the Manhattan Beach Open will continue to draw large crowds from the area known as the Mecca of beach volleyball.
The tournament began in 1960 and has become the longest running tournament in the sport. The City of Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation Department ran the event from its inception through 1983 providing the sandy – yet solid – foundation for what has become to known as the “Wimbledon of Beach Volleyball.”
The Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) took over from 1984-2009, developing the event to combine both men’s and women’s tournaments with increased prize money and national television exposure.
When the AVP was forced to cancel its tour due to financial difficulties just prior to last year’s event, the California Beach Volleyball Association (CBVA) was chosen to host the event and, against the advice of CBVA President Chris Brown, the Manhattan Beach City Council was convinced by tournament director J. Parker Saikley to play the event in its original format which included larger courts, side-out scoring where a team can only earn a point when serving, and the use of an all-leather Wilson ball. Unlike previous AVP-run events there were no bleachers or television coverage.
“Being that this was the 50th anniversary of the tournament, it was the perfect situation to go back to origins of the game,” Saikley said in a 2010 interview. Saikley’s father Charlie ran the tournament for many years and became known as the “Godfather of Beach Volleyball.”
Although the change in the game kept many of the sport’s top players from competing, it opened the door for many who ordinarily would have difficulty reaching the championship match. The exception was Sean Rosenthal, who successfully defended his title after he and Jake Gibb split the $17,000 winner’s check in 2009.
Gibb opted not to play last year giving Rosenthal the opportunity to partner with Wachtfogel, a longtime friend and fellow Redondo Union High School Sea Hawk. The duo throttled Strickland and Dana Camacho 15-4 to earn their plaque on the pier and the winner’s share of $4,375.
Also benefiting from the change in format were local women Tealle Hunkus (El Segundo) and Heather Lowe (Redondo Beach) who recorded their first major title by defeating Erin Gray and Kathryn Babcock in a hard-fought 15-11 battle.
Thirty three men’s teams have won the Manhattan Beach Open with Mike Bright and Mike O’Hara winning the first five men’s tournaments.
Mike Dodd and Tim Hovland captured five of six titles between 1982 and 1987, including four in a row against the men’s all-time winningest team of Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos, who won championships in 1986 and 1989.
Men who won their first tournament title at Manhattan were Fred Zuelich (1973), Chris Marlowe (1976), Steve Obradovich (1976), Stoklos (1981), Ricci Luyties (1988) and Mike Lambert (2004).
Including Jean Brunicardi and Johnette Latreille – who captured the first three Manhattan titles beginning in 1966 — there have 29 different teams who have won the women’s championship. Nina Matthies leads all women in Manhattan Open titles with six, (1972, 1974-75, 1980, 1984, 1986) followed by Kathy Gregory, Linda Hanley, Walsh and May-Treanor with five.
Women who experienced their first major tournament championship at the Manhattan Beach Open were Roseann Wegrich in 1970, Rose Duncan and Susie Malpee in 1971, Gregory and Matthies in 1972 and Hunkus and Lowe in 2010.
After the Miami Beach Pro event Sept. 16-18, the Jose Cuervo Pro Beach Volleyball Series returns to the South Bay for the National Championships in Hermosa Beach Sept. 23-25.
