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​​DENVER, Colorado. – Oh, where had we seen this one before? Take your pick, really. The matchup in the finals of AVP Denver, between Brazilians Lili and Larissa Maestrini and Carly Kan and Kaitlyn Leary? Rewind it back a few months and pop on a flight into Panama City, where the Brazilians won, 21-15, 17-21, 18-16, in a thriller, one in which Kan and Leary sealed up a main draw bid into AVP Austin while the Maestrinis won yet another title in Florida. The eventual victors of the second Tour Series stop of the year? You just need to take...

DENVER, Colorado – The 2022 AVP season has not gone exactly to script for Andy Benesh. Had it gone to script, he’d still be assuming the role of patient understudy, competing exclusively with Nick Lucena, a 42-year-old two-time Olympian with whom he had begun the year and planned to compete both domestic and international.  But things have not gone to script. Even by beach volleyball standards, the initial plan has been scrapped and shredded and tossed into the breeze and Benesh has been scrambling more than  a bit, becoming, by his own admission, a readily available substitute partner for anyone...

JUNE 30, 2022, DENVER, CO - It was a little less than 35 years ago when the AVP descended upon Denver for the first time in its nascent history. The actual Association of Volleyball Professionals had only begun two years prior, when a group of disgruntled players, led by Sinjin Smith, Mike Dodd, Tim Hovland, Randy Stoklos, and Karch Kiraly, among others, grew tired of the promoters running their tour in a way they didn’t much like – changing the ball, changing the rules, not being transparent with prize money. So they banded together in a union, dubbed it the...

JUNE 30, 2022, DENVER, CO - This is a preview for the AVP Denver Tour Series that, like the male counterpart which preceded it, will be based on numbers. Here’s the most fascinating of the bunch: 0. That is the number of AVP tournaments that have been hosted in Denver that featured a women’s field. Granted, there’s only been one AVP in Denver, back in 1987. At the time, the women competed on the WPVA, and Nina Matthies ruled the world. But there’s still something undeniably historic about the fact that this weekend marks a first, in a world where...

JUNE 29, 2022, POTTSTOWN, PA - There was a moment, a roughly 30-second moment, between Nolan Albrecht’s high-angle kill off the hands of Nate Miller at 13-11 and Tomas Goldsmith’s next serve. It was an innocuous one, 30 seconds that few would likely ever put a second thought into, save for one person: Nolan Albrecht. While nothing extraordinary had happened on the play before – it was, in fact, so par for the course that hardly anyone in the crowd, several hundred strong, even bothered applauding – the score, 13-11, was a significant one for Albrecht. He had been here...