Ep. 2: Hermosa Crowns Champions

Tori: Welcome back to Sideout AI. I'm Tori. Cooper: And I'm Cooper, coming to you from St. Petersburg, Florida. And before we touch a single result this week, we owe you a correction. Tori: We do. Last episode we said MOL-ee SHAW and brekht PEERS-mah were the team that just won Aspen. That was wrong. Cooper: The Mother Lode in Aspen, September fourth through seventh. The women's champs were EL-uh KAHN-er and MOL-ee SHAW. They beat MAY-see JER-ger and TOR-ee pah-rah-nah-GWAH in three sets. Tori: PEERS-mah is SHAW's Hermosa partner. Not her Aspen partner. Our bad. Cooper: Now the headlines. Tori: Hermosa has its champions, and the men's final was a same-day revenge story. Cooper: Three qualifier teams crashed the men's semifinals in Budapest. Tori: And the Laguna Open is next. The last AVP event of twenty twenty six. Cooper: Sideout AI is presented by Meta Muse. Let's get into it. Tori: Hermosa Beach, California. The Wedbush Hermosa Beach Open. September tenth through thirteenth. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Seventy five a side. Thirty two team main draws. True double elimination. Cooper: And it's over. The finals went down Sunday, September thirteenth, and we have your champions. Women's side first. Tori: Your Hermosa women's champions. The two seed. KEH-lee cheng and MEH-gan kraft. Cooper: And they never lost a match. Sunday morning, winners final. cheng and kraft swept the five seed, SAV-ee KOR-ee and DEV-in NOO-beh-ree, in two. Tori: Then KOR-ee and NOO-beh-ree did the dirty work. They dropped to the contenders semifinal and beat the three seed, MEH-gan ryse and REH-kuh OR-shee TOHT, in two. Seed gap of two. That put ryse and OR-shee TOHT in third. Cooper: Which set the final. cheng and kraft. KOR-ee and NOO-beh-ree. Again. Straight sets again. Two love. Hermosa champions. Tori: No second final needed. cheng and kraft won the first final outright. Cooper: The run that fed the chaos. Round two. Seventeen seed brekht PEERS-mah and MOL-ee SHAW over the one seed, RY-sah SKHOWN and KAHT-yah stahm. Straight sets. Seed gap of sixteen. The one seed, gone, in round two. Tori: PEERS-mah and SHAW lost the winners semi to KOR-ee and NOO-beh-ree in two. Then in the contenders bracket, they fell to ryse and OR-shee TOHT in three. Fourth place. One win short of a medal. Cooper: Other Saturday notes. cheng and kraft swept the six seed, MAD-uh-lin may AN-der-son and ah-LAY-nuh chah-KOHN, in two in the winners semi. Tori: And ahn-DREH-suh kah-vahl-KAHN-chee and tah-EES TROY-mahn beat the three seed, ryse and OR-shee TOHT, in three in round three. Seed gap of eleven. One of the bigger Saturday upsets. Cooper: One note on scores. Sunday's bracket only posted match results. So when we say straight sets or in three, that's the match score. We're not inventing set lines. Tori: Men's side. And this is the story of the weekend. Your Hermosa men's champions. The one seed. AN-dee BEN-esh and TAY-ler KRAB. Cooper: But the road was not clean. Sunday morning, winners final. The six seed, JAY-kub lah-bool-YAIR and mylz par-TAYN, swept BEN-esh and KRAB. In two. Seed gap of five. The biggest upset of Sunday. Tori: So the one seed falls to the contenders semifinal. And who was waiting? The two seed. chayss BUD-in-jer and TREH-ver KRAB. Cooper: BEN-esh and TAY-ler KRAB won it in three. That put BUD-in-jer and KRAB in third. And set up the rematch. The final. BEN-esh and KRAB against lah-bool-YAIR and par-TAYN. Same two teams. Same day. Tori: And this time the one seed flipped it. Straight sets. BEN-esh and KRAB. Hermosa champions. Swept in the morning. Champions by afternoon. You cannot write it better. Cooper: No second final needed there either. One final. One champion. Tori: BUD-in-jer and KRAB took third by beating the ten seed, shawn kuk and lee-AHN loo-EE-nee, in two. kuk and loo-EE-nee finish fourth. Cooper: Saturday context. BEN-esh and KRAB beat the four seed, gayj BAY-see and TOH-mus hurst, in three in the winners semi. lah-bool-YAIR and par-TAYN swept kuk and loo-EE-nee in two. Tori: The Saturday upsets. Winners quarterfinal. Ten seed kuk and loo-EE-nee over the two seed, BUD-in-jer and KRAB. In three. Seed gap of eight. Cooper: Six seed lah-bool-YAIR and par-TAYN over the three seed, steh-FAN BOOR-mahns and kaym shalk. In three. Gap of three. Tori: Round three. Twelve seed WHY-at HAIR-ih-son and jaymz SHAW over the five seed, mylz EH-vinz and uh-LEKS rahn-GYEH-ree. Straight sets. Gap of seven. Cooper: Scorecard time. We made our Hermosa picks Saturday night, before a single final was played. And they are on the record. Tori: Women's side, we both said cheng and kraft. Men's side, we both said BEN-esh and KRAB. Cooper: Two for two. The chaos pick, PEERS-mah and SHAW out of the contenders, died in fourth place. But the official picks both hit. We'll take it. Tori: Across the pond. Beach Pro Tour Futures, Budapest. September third through sixth. Cooper: Men's final. The nine seed, the lee-KHAHT-skee brothers from Ukraine, over the eight seed, meh-hahn-JEES-kee and KAHL-chev from Bulgaria. Straight sets. Twenty one to ten. Twenty one to thirteen. Tori: And here's the story. Three of the four men's semifinalists came through the qualifier. The finalists, meh-hahn-JEES-kee and KAHL-chev, were a qualifier team. Third place, poh-POHF and tee-OO-rin from Ukraine, qualifier team, over KLEH-men and HOHLT-sing-er from Austria, also a qualifier team. Cooper: The qualifier ate the main draw alive. In the round of twelve, qualifier meh-hahn-JEES-kee and KAHL-chev bounced the one seed, TAH-ree and NEE-my-er. Straight sets. Gap of seven. Tori: And the nine seed lee-KHAHT-skee brothers bounced the two seed, leh-YAH-vah and kahch-MAH-rek, in three. Gap of seven. Cooper: Women's side in Budapest. The one seed, koon and VIL-lahm from Hungary, over the three seed, pahv-LOH-vah and soo-NEE-vah from Norway. Twenty one seventeen. Twenty one eleven. Tori: Third place went to the ten seed qualifier, kriz-ah-now-SKY-teh and groo-jin-SKY-teh from Lithuania, over the four seed, VIN-deh-lef and MEL-moo-leh from Denmark. Straight sets. Cooper: No American teams in either main draw in Budapest. Three US pairs were in the reserves. Tori: Next World Tour stops. September seventeenth through twentieth. KOTC Utrecht in the Netherlands. And Futures Corigliano Rossano in Italy. Cooper: Grass check. Quiet week. Nothing on the grass cleared our ten thousand dollar bar with a verifiable purse. So we wait. Tori: The Scene. Partner changes and splits. Nothing. Nobody split. Nobody swapped. The beach is stable. Cooper: Next weekend. September eighteenth through twentieth. The Progressive AVP Laguna Open. Laguna Beach, California. Heritage Series. And it's the final AVP event of twenty twenty six. Tori: Entries aren't final yet, so these are way too early leans. Women's side. Give us cheng and kraft. They're the form team right now. Full stop. Cooper: Men's side. Give us BEN-esh and TAY-ler KRAB. Back to back weeks. Tori: We'll lock real picks next week when the entry lists drop. Tori: Player Spotlight of the Week. Presented by Meta Muse. Cooper: MEH-gan kraft. Tori: Twenty three years old. Six foot. San Diego, California. USC. Cooper: And the resume is ridiculous. Four NCAA national championships with the Trojans. Twenty twenty four collegiate player of the year. A hundred twenty three career college wins. Tori: She qualified for her first AVP main draw at sixteen. Won the under nineteen world championship in twenty twenty one with Delaynie Maple. They went eight and oh. Cooper: Twenty twenty four FIVB rookie of the year. Two Futures titles. A NORCECA title. Career winnings over two hundred eighty thousand dollars. Tori: This year she teamed up with KEH-lee cheng, and nine events in they already have two silvers and three bronzes on the World Tour. Then they went undefeated in Hermosa. Cooper: Twenty three years old. Chasing LA twenty twenty eight. And now a Hermosa champion. Tori: That's the show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every week. Cooper: Next week we lock real Laguna picks when the entry lists drop. See you on the sand.