Hard Rock hosts beach volleyball

Thursday, Sept. 5, 2002 | 9:37 a.m.

Pro beach volleyball legend Karch Kiraly, Olympic gold medalist Eric Fonoimoana and the top-ranked women's team of Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs headline the $150,000 Paul Mitchell AVP Shootout-Las Vegas, which begins this afternoon and runs through Saturday at the Hard Rock hotel-casino.

The event, which features the top eight men's and women's volleyball teams from the 2002 Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) tour, is experimenting with a single-elimination format this year. The winning teams will split $30,000, making this event the richest paying tournament on the 2002 AVP tour.

Men's and women's main-draw matches will begin at 4 p.m. today and 3 p.m. on Friday. Semifinal and finals matches will begin at 1:30 on Saturday at the 5,000-seat stadium located in the parking lot on the east side of the hotel-casino.

Kiraly, making his first appearance in Las Vegas in three years, is $2,492 shy of becoming the first player to reach the $3-million mark in career earnings. Kiraly and partner Brent Doble are seeded fourth and will play their first match Friday at 4:15 p.m. against the fifth-seeded team of Stein Metzger and Kevin Wong.

McPeak and Youngs, the top-seeded women's team, will meet the eighth-seeded team of Stephanie Cox and Jen Holdren at 7:45 tonight.

Fonoimoana and Dax Holdren, the top-seeded men's team, will play their first match against eighth-seeded Albert Hannemann and Jeff Nygaard at 6:45 p.m. Friday.

Also on this weekend's schedule is a "Battle of the Sexes" match at 8 p.m. Friday that will pit volleyball legends Jim Menges and Matt Gage against McPeak and Youngs.

General admission tickets are priced at $5 for today, $10 for Friday and $15 for Saturday. A three-day general admission pass is $25. Three-day passes in the front row are $90 and three-day passes in rows 2 through 4 are $60. Tickets and passes will be available at the gate.

The men's final will be televised on Fox Sports Net on Sept. 19, at 3 p.m. The women's final will be broadcast on the Oxygen Network on Sept. 14 at 5 p.m.