AVP Fort Lauderdale: Top men make semis, Graudina-Harward mix up women’s side

The men’s side is more or less holding form at the AVP Pro Series Fort Lauderdale Open.

The women’s side was a lot more unpredictable Saturday.

Two men’s semifinalists, top-seeded Theo Brunner and Chaim Schalk and second-seeded Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb, await their Sunday opponents. 

Brunner and Schalk blasted fourth-seeded Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander 21-16, 21-10 in the third round, while Bourne and Crabb beat third-seeded Chase Budinger and Troy Field 21-16, 21-18.

To get to the semifinals, Team Taylor must beat 10th-seeed John Hyden and Logan Webber, while Budinger and Field play fifth-seeded Paul Lotman and Miles Partain. 

Hyden and Weber survived an 18-21, 25-23, 15-10 victory over 11th-seeded Avery Drost and Miles Evans in a match that took an hour, 7 minutes, while Lotman and Partain beat sixth-seeded Andy Benesh and Nick Lucena 13-21, 21-19, 18-16, in a match that took an hour, 12 minutes.

The eight-seeded pair of former USC teammates Tina Graudina and Hailey Harward are in one women’s semifinal, while second-seeded Kelly Cheng and Betsi Flint are in the other.

Graudina and Harward got through when they downed fourth-seeded Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss 17-21, 21-16, 15-13 in at that point was the longest women’s match of the day, an hour and 2 minutes.

But then it took Cheng and Flint five minutes longer to get past third-seeded Sara Hughes and Kelley Kolinske 22-20, 24-26, 15-11.

To get to the semifinals, Kloth and Nuss will have to beat 11th-seeded Julia Scoles and Geena Urango, and Hughes and Kolinske will have to beat sixth-seeded Zana Muno and Brandie Wilkerson.

Muno, the former UCLA standout, and Canadian Olympian Wilkerson had quite a Saturday. First they knocked out top-seeded USA Olympian Sarah Sponcil and Terese Cannon 24-22, 21-15, and then stayed alive with a 21-15, 21-18 win over the hottest team on the tour, Brazilians Larissa and Lili Maestrini.

Click here for the complete women’s results and schedule, and here for the men’s, courtesy of BVBinfo.com.