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| GARY HIGGINS/The Patriot Ledger |
| Amateurs participate in a play-in for the right to compete against professionals in the weekend's pro beach volleyball tournament. Alexandra Wolak of New York puts one past her opponents. |
'Next year, we'll be ready'
Ousted local qualifiers turn thoughts, aspirations to AVP return in the future
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| GARY HIGGINS/The Patriot Ledger |
| Chad Jones of Quincy participates in an opening round. |
The Patriot Ledger
QUINCY - The wait for next year began just hours after this year began, but Matt Isaacs and Chad Jones didn’t really mind.
Isaacs, a New Jersey transplant who lives in Randolph, and Jones, a California-bred Quincy resident, both tried to get into the main draw of the AVP Crocs Tour’s Boston Open via the qualifying tournament at Marina Bay on Thursday, Aug. 16. Neither survived the first round, but neither considered the experience anything short of time very well spent.
“We’ll absolutely be back next year,” said Isaacs, 28, one of the first players on the court with teammate Bruno Tramontozzi, who grew up in Newton and now lives in Beverly. “We had a great time.”
Isaacs, who played club volleyball at Tufts University, hadn’t tried to get into an AVP event before, but Jones is an old hand. Following his career at Califoria-Irvine, the Laguna Beach native played on “the lower end” of the tour, making it into the “Super Bowl” of AVP tournaments at Manhattan Beach, Calif., in the mid-1990s.
Jones and teammate Bill Bowe, a Needham native currently attending UMass-Boston, didn’t make it past first-round foes Guy Hamilton and Jon Hubright, but that didn’t end the AVP experience for Jones.
“I still have a lot of friends who play on the Tour,” he said, “so I’ve kind of got a frat house thing going this weekend. A lot of guys are staying with me.”
Isaacs and Tramontozzi, 36, nearly made it to the second qualifying round without striking a ball. One of their opponents, Dan Madden, was a few minutes late for their 8 a.m. match, so Isaacs and Tramontozzi were awarded the first set by forfeit. Madden and Ivan Mercer took the second set, 21-14, and won the decisive set, 15-10.
Isaacs and Tramontozzi weren’t altogether surprised. Their opponents were native Californians who can play on the beach year-round, while Isaacs and Tramontozzi hadn’t played any competitive beach volleyball as a team.
“The first time we played together was (Wednesday),” said Isaacs, who works for the Department of Transportation by day, and met Tramontozzi through local tournaments. “We were just grabbing friends to practice, saying ‘Please, help us.’ ”
That said, the Isaacs-Tramontozzi team didn’t feel outclassed.
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| GARY HIGGINS/The Patriot Ledger |
| Marla O'Hara of Southern California competes on Thursday, Aug. 16. |
“We weren’t at the top of our game,” Tramontozzi said. “If we’d made a couple fewer mistakes, we had a good shot at taking those guys. We’re actually encouraged.”
Jones and Bowe felt somewhat the same after their 21-15, 21-14 defeat.
“We should have done a lot better against that team,” Bowe said. “Some of the teams that play until later in the day would have had us at a disadvantage. They’re playing year-round, and here we can only play on the beach for two or three months.
“That shows up later on, but we still didn’t play up to our potential today.”
Jones, who has lived in Quincy for 6½ years, stuck to the regional tournaments he could find until he heard the AVP was going to be playing up the street.
“Once I got into my career (he helped start a company recently purchased by Microsoft), I just played for fun, and to keep in shape,” he said. “But seeing as I only live about two minutes from here, I signed up as soon as I heard about it - three months or so ago, I guess.
“I love living here, but this is like a little taste of home.”
Though there has been no official word on a return to Marina Bay next year, players like Isaacs, Jones, Tramontozzi and Bowe are counting on it.
“It’s nice that it’s back here,” Isaacs said. “I think it’s going to be an even bigger tournament next year, with more and more teams from the region trying to qualify for the main draw.”
And they’ll expect to be contenders, too.
“We had a great time,” Tramontozzi said. “We knew we weren’t going to be ready, but we figured, ‘Let’s go do it, get a feel for what it’s about, see what the level is.’
“Next year, we’ll be ready.”
The Patriot Ledger
QUINCY — Matt Olson felt their pain, understood the pressure on them. He’d lived it, after all. Olson, who makes up half the 10th-seeded men’s volleyball team in the AVP Croc’s Tour Bob’s Stores Boston Open, was to play a first-round match today at Marina Bay with partner Brent Doble. Their opponents, Ran Kubinsky and Scott Lane, had to grind out three victories in Thursday’s qualifying tournament just to earn the right to be big underdogs.
“That’s huge pressure,” said Olson, a main draw cinch for the last four years after spending almost as many seasons trying to win his way into tournaments. “I remember a lot of qualifiers. I vividly remember some losses, and some wins, even after being in the main draw for the last four years.
“And to tell you the truth, I remember my (qualifying round) losses more than my wins.”
Forty-nine men’s teams and 23 women’s teams spent Thursday competing for four slots in each side of the draw. The players all had to pay their way to the tournament, put themselves up, and foot their share of a $100 per team entry fee. Some players were finished for the day, and for the tournament, before 9 a.m. Most had been eliminated by lunchtime.
“In the main draw, at least you get double elimination,” said Kristin Ursillo, a Northeastern University product who flew out from San Diego to try to get to the main draw, but made it only as far as Round 2 of the qualifier. “So there’s a lot of pressure on the Thursday teams. You only get one shot ... and it’s tough when you come all the way to a tournament, and it’s one-and-done.”
Unless a young or new talent catches the eye of an established player, though, qualifying tournaments are the only way into the main draw. And while getting to the tournament proper is great, the livin’ isn’t necessarily easy there. Qualifiers are invariably stacked in favor of top-seeded men’s and women’s teams, so it’s tough to hang around for long.
“It’s a tough sport,” said Chad Jones, a Quincy resident who played on the Tour while living in California, and lost a first-round qualifier yesterday with partner Bill Bowe. “A lot of guys train really hard, scrape up enough money to fly to tournaments, try hard to qualify. They want to live the dream, but if you really want that dream, you’ve got to work really hard for it.”
Gina Kirstein, Ursillo’s partner, knows all about that. A product of the University of Illinois and Colorado Christian University, she played a qualifier or two for several years, and entered only two in 2006. At 31, the Wilmington, N.C.-based veterinarian technician has played 11 tournaments this year - every one as a qualifier. She and currently injured partner Nicki Fusco made it into two main draws.
“This is my first year really going for it, and it’s been an amazing experience,” said Kirstein, who struck up a friendship with Ursillo at a tournament in Chicago, but hadn’t played with her until Thursday. “It’s an expensive experience because people at this level don’t have a lot of sponsorship, but it’s something I’ve always loved, and I’d love to do it again next year.”
Just to do it next week in Cincinnati, she’ll have to find another partner: Ursillo, cheered on yesterday by the NU women’s team, starts law school Tuesday at Cal-Western - a day before she turns 24.
“I think this might have been my last tournament for this year,” said Ursillo, who has played the qualifying rounds of 10 Tour stops this season. “I’ll probably play next summer, after school’s over in April. I won’t be able to play full time for a while ... but it’s definitely not the only time (she and Kirstein) will play together, for sure.”
The right partner can make all the difference. Olson played with several different players in his seasons as a qualifier, and even after he became a main draw staple. His partnership with Doble has resulted in his best season, with earnings to date of almost $35,000.
“I’ll have to pay taxes,” he joked. “I’m very excited.”
Playing into main draws via qualifiers, though, is no joke.
“You’re in the last match to get into the tournament,” he remembered.
“Those are the points I really remember. That’s when the mental game really kicks in.”