HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — The American pro beach volleyball scene is rife with new partnerships.
Perhaps you’ve heard.
Maybe you heard that some two-time Olympian picked up some NBA guy, and that a former USC star scooped a girl named Summer, and that a different USC star just took a silver medal at a four-star event in China with a three-time AVP champion from 2017, and that a different Ross was playing with a tall indoor phenom named Klineman, and that they should be pretty good too, as should another three-time AVP winner from 2017 and last year’s AVP San Francisco champion who decided to team up.
Maybe, amid all that hubbub, we brushed aside the old partnerships that don’t need to learn new tricks.
For there, right at the top of the bracket Thursday at FIVB Huntington Beach, stood top-seeded Lauren Fendrick and Brooke Sweat, an Olympic pairing in the 2016 Rio Games who in 2017 both tried out with partners named Ross. When both needed a partner to begin the 2018 AVP season, the answer was obvious.
“I’m like ‘Yup! Let’s do this,’” Fendrick said.
They did it.
Amid the inevitable carnage all across the brackets, both on the men’s and women’s side, Fendrick and Sweat earned a bye and then breezed through a 21-12, 21-13 win over Colombia’s Andrea Galindo and Claudia “Gorda” Galindo that took all of 28 minutes.
Just like that, their day was done, the envy of the tournament.
“Having played together before, I have a pretty good idea of what she wants and how she plays,” Fendrick said. “And I think she has the same for me.”
Indeed.
“This match for us today was just a good chance for us to get back on the court together in a tournament,” Sweat said. “We were anxious to play so it was a nice match for us to get the kinks out.”
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