Two First-Time Partnerships Open the 2026 AVP Season With Titles
The 2026 AVP season opened this past weekend at the Huntington Beach Pier with two championships that shared a remarkable parallel: both winning teams were playing their first AVP main draw together as partners.
Andy Benesh and Taylor Crabb won the men’s title in their first AVP event as a duo. Thâmela Coradello and Victoria Lopes won the women’s title in their first AVP event as a duo. Both finals were two-set wins. And both ended trends that had stood for years.
The Men’s Final: Benesh and Taylor Crabb Take Down the No. 1 Seed
Benesh and Taylor Crabb closed the men’s draw with a 21-18, 23-21 win over top-seeded Chase Budinger and Miles Evans. The two-set scoreline was tight, but Benesh’s individual line was as efficient as it gets in a final: 10 kills on 14 attempts, zero hitting errors, .714 hitting, four blocks, and four aces. Taylor Crabb anchored the back of the court with 22 digs in two sets, the highest-leverage defensive performance of any player in either final.
Their path to the title moved through three of the most-watched storylines from the event preview. In the quarterfinals, they took out Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medalists who eliminated Benesh and Miles Partain in the Paris 2024 quarterfinals. The Paris rematch happened — Benesh and his new partner won. In the semis, Benesh and Taylor Crabb beat Derek Bradford and Evan Cory, the rookie duo who had run the contender’s bracket all the way back from a round one loss to reach the medal rounds. And in the final, they handled the tournament’s top seed.
Benesh has now won the first AVP event of two different partnerships, both at Huntington Beach — first with Miles Partain in 2023, now with Taylor Crabb. Excluding Contender Series events, no other men’s duo has won their AVP debut tournament in the three years between.
Budinger and Evans had their own path worth noting. In the semifinals, Evans’s serving carried them past Cherif and Ahmed, with three aces and pressure that kept Qatar out of system. Budinger added four blocks. In the final, Evans served aggressively again — four aces — but with nine service errors. Discipline at the line ended up being the difference. Benesh had only two service errors against his four aces.
The Women’s Final: Brazil’s Wildcards Win After a Contender’s Bracket Comeback
Thâmela and Victoria, the world’s No. 3 team, won the women’s title 21-18, 21-17 over ninth-seeded Devon Newberry and Savannah Simo. Victoria led all attempts in the final with 36 swings, posting 18 kills, 21 digs, and three aces — a workhorse line that anchored the Brazilian win. Thâmela added two aces and the team’s three controlled blocks.
What made the result historic was the path. Brazil lost in the second round of the winners bracket to Sara Hughes and Ally Batenhorst, the No. 11 seed. The tournament’s biggest upset by seed margin took the world’s No. 3 team out of the winners bracket on Friday. Brazil then ran the contender’s bracket — four straight wins — to reach the championship match and win it.
Their opponent in the final, Newberry and Simo, had the same kind of arc on the other side of the draw. They lost to top-seeded Kristen Nuss Cruz and Taryn Brasher in the winners bracket on Friday, dropped to contenders, and won four straight matches to reach the semifinals. There, they beat Nuss Cruz and Brasher a second time — the team that had eliminated them the day before — in three sets. Simo recorded four aces in the semifinal. Simo also led the team in digs across the weekend with 87. Both contender’s-bracket comeback teams met in the final.
Brazil’s win ended two long-standing trends. It was only the second AVP season opener (excluding Contender Series) in which the winning team did not include an Olympian, the first since Kim DiCello and Kendra VanZwieten won New Orleans in 2015. It was also only the second time in the last 20 Huntington Beach events that the championship match did not feature the top seed. Nuss Cruz and Brasher, the world’s No. 4 team and tournament No. 1 seed, finished tied for third.
The international wildcards delivered the kind of weekend that justified their entry. Brazil won outright. Qatar’s Cherif and Ahmed finished tied for third on the men’s side, with Cherif leading all men in blocks (26 in 11 sets, 2.36 per set). Switzerland’s Anouk and Zoé Vergé-Dépré finished seventh on the women’s side after losing in the second round to Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson — a result that flipped the FIVB rankings, where Switzerland sits eighth and Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson ninth.
Broader Takeaways
The contender’s bracket told the story of the event. Three of the four finalists across both genders reached their championship match through the contender’s bracket. Brazil, Newberry and Simo, and on the men’s side, Bradford and Cory, all lost in the winners bracket and won their way back. Bradford and Cory, the rookie duo seeded 12th on the men’s side, lost in round one to Heritage partnership Miles Partain and James Shaw — and then beat the same team in the contender’s bracket to advance to the men’s semifinals. Five straight contender’s bracket wins on their way to a tied-third finish.
The AVP League’s top names didn’t reach the finals. Nuss Cruz and Brasher finished tied for third. Trevor Crabb and Phil Dalhausser, the 2025 AVP MVP and the 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist, finished tied for fifth. Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson finished tied for fifth. Hagen Smith and Logan Webber went out early in round one. The Heritage event went to the new partnerships and the international wildcards. The League’s most decorated incumbents will get the season’s regular structure starting at Belmar.
Defense decided the weekend. Taylor Crabb led all men in total and per-set digs (58 in 11 sets, 5.27 per set). Nuss Cruz led the women’s draw with 91 digs in 11 sets — 8.27 per set. Simo was second with 87. Wilkerson led the women’s tournament in total blocks (21 in 10 sets, 2.10 per set), even with a fifth-place finish. James Shaw led the men in aces (16 in 10 sets, 1.60 per set) and was second in blocks (22 in 10 sets, 2.20 per set). Betsi Flint led the women’s draw in ace average (1.71 per set) despite a round one exit — the preview line about Flint being among the best servers on the AVP showed up on the stat sheet.
What’s Next
The AVP League season opens in two weeks at Belmar, NJ on May 30-31, the first of eight League weeks before the Championship in Chicago. The official team rosters take effect at Belmar, which means the Heritage partnerships from this weekend will reset. Partain rejoins Paul Lotman for the Dallas Dream. James Shaw rejoins Chaim Schalk for the New York Nitro. The League’s full team rosters will be on the sand for the first time. Get your Belmar tickets here.
The first California League event of the season is Long Beach, CA on July 11-12. AVP fans on the West Coast looking ahead to the next home event can lock in tickets now. Get Long Beach tickets here.
AVP Gold Membership gets you 10% off every AVP event ticket, 30% off Wilson volleyballs, 25% off AVP merch, plus more discounts on partner brands. Check it out at members.avp.com.