The men’s semifinals and women’s quarterfinals and semifinals of the World Series of Beach Volleyball will be played Saturday on Alamitos Beach in Long Beach with American teams represented in both draws.
Phil Dalhausser, a 2008 Olympic gold medalist who lives in Ventura, and Nick Lucena, a Santa Barbara resident, will face 10th-seeded Adrian Gavira and Pablo Herrera of Spain in the second men’s semifinal, set to begin at 3:15 p.m.
Dalhausser and Lucena, who are both 35, are seeded 24th. Both teams needed to win three matches Friday to reach the semifinals.
The winner will advance to Sunday’s final against the winner of the opening semifinal between second-seeded Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt of Brazil, the reigning world champions, and fifth-seeded Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands, the 2013 world champions.
Three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings of Manhattan Beach, and April Ross of Costa Mesa, a silver medalist in the 2012 Olympics, will face Canadians Heather Bansley and Sarah Pavan in a women’s quarterfinal.
The Walsh Jennings-Ross team is seeded eighth and has won three of four matches against the fourth-seeded Canadians on the the World Tour organized by FIVB, volleyball’s international governing body.
Bansley and Pavan’s lone victory came by forfeit last month at the Gstaad Major in Switzerland last month when Walsh Jennings withdrew from the match due to her second right shoulder dislocation of the season.
Both teams are 4-0 in the tournament, with the Walsh Jennings-Ross team winning all its matches 2-0.
Bansley and Pavan were forced into a third set in two of their pool play matches and Friday’s round of 16 match against the 18th-seeded team of Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude of Germany.
The Walsh Jennings-Ross-Bansley-Pavan winner will face the winner of the quarterfinal between the sixth-seeded German team of Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst of Germany and Linline Matauatu and Pata Miller of the Oceanian island nation of Vanuatu.
Miller and Matauatu advanced to the quarterfinals with a 2-1 upset of the top-seeded and reigning world champion duo of Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas of Brazil Friday.
The tournament is part of the qualifying process for the 2016 Olympics.
Saturday’s play will be followed by a concert from 5-9 p.m. featuring Heymous Molly, Holy Child, Hayley Orrantia, The Mowgli’s, Bahari, Danny Mercer, Radical Something, Adam Lambert and American Authors.
The tournament concludes Sunday with the medal rounds and a celebrity match hosted by actor Josh Hutcherson, benefiting Straight But Not Narrow, a nonprofit organization primarily focused on straight youth and young adults that strives to positively influence the perception of and behavior toward their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender peers.
—City News Service