THE SUNKIST OPEN AT MUSKEGON ATTRACTS 86 PRO BEACH VOLLEYBALL TEAMS
Courtesy Of Tim Simmons (bfishinc@aol.com)
MUSKEGON, MICH. - A total of 54 men's and 32 women's teams have "officially"
entered this weekend's The Sunkist Open at Muskegon featuring the top pro beach volleyball players in the United States vying for $125,000 in total prize money at Pere Marquette Park.The Muskegon event is the third of eight stops on the Association of
Volleyball Professionals (AVP) Tour.  The Sunkist Open at Muskegon starts Friday (July 13) at 9 a.m. (EDT) on six sand courts at Pere Marquette Park with Round 3 of the men's competition and Round 2 for the women.Friday's Qualification Tournament will determine the final four berths in both the 24-team Main Draws for men and women.The first72 Main Draw matches(36 matches per gender)will be played Saturday starting at9a.m
Sunday's competition starts at 8 a.m. with the final 20 matches being played(10 matches per gender).The final matches will begin approximately at 1 p.m. Sunday.  Brighton
Entertainment of New York, N. Y., will be taping The Sunkist Open at Muskegon
action for replay July 23 on FOX Sports Net.  The 2001 AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour season opened with a pair of events in Southern California last month with a combined men's and women's event in Hermosa Beach (June 8-10) and a men's tournament in Huntington Beach (June 15-17).The men's Main Drawcompetition will feature Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana,the Gold Medallists at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.  Blanton and Fonoimoana have competed the past four weeks in Europe and will return to Muskegon for their only July domestic event.Blanton and Fonoimoana placed second in the 2001 AVP season opener in Hermosa.  Other top men's team entered in The Sunkist Open at Muskegon are Canyon Ceman/Mike Whitmarsh, Nick Hannemann/Adam Jewell, Scott Ayakatubby/Eduardo Bacil and Brent Doble/Lee LeGrande.Ayakatubby, who is returning to the AVP Tour after being sidelined much of the past four seasons with injuries, and Bacil won the Huntington Beach title after upsetting Ceman and Whitmarsh in the finals.  Hannemann and Jewell placed third in Huntington.  Whitmarsh, who captured the Silver Medal with Mike Dodd at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, is the AVP's reigning "King of the Beach" after winning the crown last October in Las Vegas.The teams of Lisa Arce/Holly McPeak and Barbra Fontana/Elaine Youngs will be the top two tandems in the women's competition.  Arce and McPeak defeated Fontana and Youngs in the Hermosa Beach finale.  Both teams have spent the last month in Europe where Youngs and Fontana won the Italian Open (June 17 at Cagliari) and placed second in Switzerland (June 23 at Gstaad) and the Canary Islands (July 8 at Gran Canaria).Arce and McPeak placed fifth in all three FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour events.  McPeak has won more money ($748,805) than any American woman in pro beach history.  McPeak ranks second in career wins (56) among United States women as she has teamed with Arce to win 15 pro beach titles together.Led by Leonard Armato, Management Plus of Manhattan Beach, Calif., acquired the AVP (May 31, 2001) to unite the world's best men's and women's professional beach volleyball players under one umbrella organization.  The unification attracted large domestic fields for the first two stops on the "new" AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour.Armato actually founded the AVP and served as its executive director in the 1980's.  Under his initial leadership, the AVP developed into a national professional league, attracting major sponsors and national television exposure along with increases in player prize money.