LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. — The idea began in Virginia Beach.
It was before Silila Tucker would even play his first match in the Tour Series event with Andrew Dentler. Tucker and Andy Benesh, who was relegated to coaching duties for Deahna Kraft and Allie Wheeler after his partner, Miles Evans, had to withdraw due to an injury at AVP Manhattan Beach, locked in to play together in a tournament a month down the road.
“When’s the deadline for Laguna?” Benesh asked Tucker last month, referring to the 67th annual Laguna Open, held this past weekend. “I’m down to sign up.”
Play with Andy Benesh? At this point — no matter how few practices, how scant the repetitions — how could anyone turn that down?
From the first tournament of this 2022 AVP season, Benesh had established himself as the ultimate partner, a 6-foot-9 27-year-old who can evidently win with anyone, regardless of skill set or practice time. He won the Austin Pro Series with Phil Dalhausser, despite never having split-blocked in a professional tournament, knocking off Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb and Taylor Sander and Taylor Crabb in the process. Two weeks later, he won an AVPNext Gold in San Antonio, Texas with Tim Brewster, jump-starting what would become a brilliant and breakout season for the young lefty. A month or so later, now with Miles Evans, he won again, claiming a Tour Series title in Denver, Colorado, battling through a long road in the contender’s bracket to do so.
So when Benesh told Tucker he was in to play Laguna, a tournament that Tucker “wanted to play, but it wasn’t the end of the world,” he said, there was really no question about it.
“Yeah,” Tucker said with a laugh, “he’s not a bad pickup.”
Benesh, in fact, may be the best pickup by any partner this season, as he and Tucker won Laguna, finishing the weekend undefeated after a three-set victory over Paul Lotman and Troy Field in the finals. It completed a two-day stretch in which Benesh and Tucker knocked off a host of elite teams, including, in the second round of the winner’s bracket, Evan Cory and Logan Webber, Lotman and Field, Avery Drost and Chase Frishman, then Lotman and Field once more in a finals rematch.
Benesh, who made the final a year ago with Billy Allen, said on Sunday that this was the most stacked he’d ever seen the annual event, which at 67 years is the longest-running…
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