Beach nuts

<![CDATA[So it's beach season, and that's going to comprise the bulk of TNS content over the summer. Until the indoor world championships start, anyway (I may or may not delve into World League this year — it just isn't gonna matter as much this year as last).

There are 21 events this year — 10 Grand Slams, 8 Opens for both genders, 2 Opens for women only, and 1 Open for men only. Three have already happened, one of them concluding this past Sunday. I had every intention of writing up championship Sunday, which may well be all I can write up for the bulk of the season. But it wasn’t internet troubles that kept me from doing so; it was something closer to apa–not apathy exactly, but the fact is Opens are gonna have pretty weak fields this year.

Let’s rewind. In the interests of having everything on record, a few words about last month’s China double-shot. The season began in Fuzhou for the second year in a row (at least), with what will almost certainly be the best-attended Open of the season, being that the first Grand Slam, in Shanghai, followed directly thereafter. Golds went to the Italian tandem of Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo on the men’s side, and the likely team-of-the-year on the women’s side in Kerri Walsh and April Ross from the USA. These events had pretty strong fields; Walsh/Ross defeated their probable nemeses over this season in the Brazilian team of Juliana Felisberta Da Silva and Maria Antonelli (nice to have Juliana back — which could have been a story all its own).

Nicolai and Lupo made it two-for-two in Shanghai the next week, putting them atop the World Tour standings on their first publication. April and Kerri came up short, however, losing in the knockout stage quarterfinals to Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas De Freitas in a narrow two-setter. That’s what some people mean when they say beach volleyball now is too skewed in favour of being a crapshoot, all about parity — a (21-19, 21-17) result doesn’t exactly mean the better team won. That’s one or two good breaks going to someone. Frankly, I think that’s better than the alternative (sideout scoring and two-hour long matches), but I can at least see the argument. Agatha and Seixas went on to take the bronze in Shanghai, with Germany’s Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst walking away with the gold.

That brought us to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last week. Like the majority of Opens this year, it wasn’t attended by most of the very top teams in the world (no Walsh/Ross for one thing). While Opens are back on the World Tour calendar, they don’t award as many points as Grand Slams, nor do they — elephant in the room time — have anywhere near the prize pool. Coming just a week (or three days, if they played to the end of the Shanghai GS) after a trip across the world for most of the top teams, a stop in Mexico to play for peanuts just isn’t worth it. Most of that will still be true for later Opens on the calendar (they’re in some semi-exotic places — not just the Americas and Western Europe). Gold in Puerto Vallarta went to Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Jānis Šmēdiņš from Latvia (easily the best team present) and Agatha/Seixas on the women’s side. They beat compatriots Juliana/Maria in the final. It’s possible those two, who meant to play together last season, leading to Juliana being sidelined in a complicated powerplay, will need a little time to start clicking on all cylinders. I’ll be shocked if they don’t win at least one gold this year, and a little surprised if they don’t win two or three.

Next up is one of the women-only events, in Prague, from 21 — 25 May. Since it, like all the Opens, will have lesser World Tour points and prize money available, it remains to be seen what teams will make the trip. I’ll do my best to write up championship Sunday for that one anyway. The next week brings us to Anapa, Russia for a double-gender Open.]]>