If there has ever been a year in which there is an appetite for a traditional, old school, blue collar beach volleyball tournament, it is difficult to think of a season greater than this one.

With the AVP venturing into its new League-style format, and the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour venturing into a pool play format during its Elite events that still many don’t quite understand, while the Challenges operate in a modified pool play, it left a single tournament on the schedule with the traditional double-elimination tournament in the Manhattan Beach Open.

But independent events still exist on the beach volleyball calendar, with the $180,000 Hermosa Open presented by Wedbush recently being added to that list after last year’s debut as a tournament run by Mark Paaluhi and the city itself rather than the AVP.

Which makes this weekend the second of two 32-team double eliminations in the United States in 2025, a far cry from the 10-plus of the Leonard Armato era in the 2000s and the seven to eight put on by Donald Sun from 2013-2019.

Paaluhi takes it a step further in making the event a true double-elim rather than the Olympic crossover. In the latter, once four teams are in the semifinals, the tournament becomes single-elimination, so even if you make it to the semifinals without a loss but drop that one, you still take third. The former presents the opportunity for a double-final, which occurred on the women’s side in 2024, as Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes shook off multiple championship points to beat Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft – and then do it again shortly after in a golden set to take the title.

The other differentiator, not just from the AVP but the rest of the volleyball world at large? Mixed pairings.

No longer are countrymen and women tethered together. USA Volleyball players can play with whomever they wish, no matter country affiliation. The AVP does this, too, for players who hold active green cards, such as Alison and Alvaro and several others. There are no such restrictions in Hermosa, nor are there any points to gain from the event. Given the free-for-all partnership potential, the only point system that weighs tournaments the same is TruVolley, which is how the seeding was done. With the independent nature of the event, there are no rankings to climb – no World Championships points on the line, no AVP League race to run, no entry points to boost or be mindful of losing.

Just beach volleyball.

Simple, pure, beach volleyball.

So several partnerships are different. Fun. New. Many will be one-tournament stands.

Take Trevor Crabb and Sam Schachter, the three seed who is as likely as anyone to finish with a win, even with both of them being right side defenders. Or Enrique Bello and Ryan Wilcox, an Englishman and an American, or Tomer Hadar and John Schwengel, an Israeli and a U.S. defender.

The top teams, however, are teams through and through: Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, Chaim Schalk and James Shaw, Alison and Alvaro, Billy Allen and Paul Lotman, Hagen Smith and Logan Webber, Gage Basey and Thomas Hurst. 2016 Olympian Ben Saxton is returning to the sand as well, partnering with Graham Vigrass, an indoor Olympian who also competed in the 2016 Rio Games. They are the men’s wild cards for the event.

This is much the same on the women’s side. While some players got creative – Carly Kan picking up UCLA blocker Sally Perez, Julia Donlin pairing with Macy Ludwig – most teams remained the same, while Australians Cassie Dodd (also at UCLA with Perez) and Caitlin Bettenay were awarded the women’s wild card.

And the women’s field is one elite team after the next.

The top two teams – Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw — feature three out of last year’s four finalists, with Shaw swapping in for Sara Hughes. Corinne Quiggle and Teegan Van Gunst are seeking to replicate their honeymoon success from the Manhattan Beach Open, where they finished third, as are USC stars Kennedy Coakley and Ashley Pater, who likewise finished third. Kylie DeBerg and Xolani Hodel are coming off their first Elite main draw in Hamburg and could double down into a deep run in Hermosa. Stanford standouts Kelly Belardi and Charlotta Bell have already won one independent tournament this year – the famed Vancouver Open – and are looking to make it a second. Down the list, sneakily seeded No. 15, are Devon Newberry and Jaden Whitmarsh, who popped off at the beginning of the year with a bronze medal at the Yucatan Challenge and narrowly missed on qualifying for the AVP League.

They, too, could contend – as could dozens of teams in a field littered with the top talent in the NCAA.

There will be no funky formats to understand, no point differentials to determine.

Just simple beach volleyball: two losses and you’re out.

The team who avoids that wins.

The way it used to be.

How to follow the Hermosa Open

For brackets and other information, head to VolleyballLife. 

How to watch the Hermosa Open

Livestream will be up at the Hermosa Open home website here. 

Want to support the Hermosa Open?

Do so here, at the website.