AVP Fort Lauderdale going to be a ‘family affair’ highlighted by local talent

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida — There was a single event with a metaphorical asterisk that Kyle Friend marked when the AVP announced its 16-stop schedule this past February:

Fort Lauderdale.

Friend was raised less than an hour up the road, in Boca Raton, winning 101 matches, a pair of state championships, and twice was named the Florida Player of the Year in four years at Spanish River High.

But the AVP hadn’t been to Fort Lauderdale, once a regular and popular stop on tour, since 2010, when Friend was a junior at Long Beach State. When his professional career indoors finished, including stops in Sweden and Switzerland, and he began competing in AVPs in 2017, “the one place I wanted there to be a stop was Fort Laudy,” the 33-year-old blocker-turned-defender-turned-blocker for Tim Brewster said. “To be honest, I was never sure if there would ever be another AVP Fort Lauderdale, let alone during the time when I am still playing.”

Let alone the time he is playing what is, objectively speaking, the best beach volleyball of his career. This season, Friend has twice reset his career-high on the AVP, finishing seventh in Denver with Brewster — the event that qualified them for Fort Lauderdale — and then followed it up with his first final, in Waupaca on July 9. Last weekend, in Atlantic City, again they made the semifinals, finishing third after a narrow loss to eventual champs Cody Caldwell and David Lee, 21-13, 17-21, 9-15. Boding well for Friend, too, is that Brewster has made a convincing case for the AVP Breakthrough Player of the Year.

The 22-year-old had been competing in AVP qualifiers since 2016, yet hadn’t made a main draw. In three events with Friend, he’s finished seventh, second, and third, and has flown up the AVP rankings, to No. 21, ahead of veterans such as Jeremy Casebeer, Miles Evans, Avery Drost, John Hyden, and Tim Bomgren, among others.

“I am so fired up for Tim’s first [Pro Series] main draw and that fact alone makes me want to block everything for him,” Friend said. “I’m just loving sharing the court with Tim and grateful I get to be a part of his long journey on the AVP.”

Friend isn’t the only local competing in Fort Lauderdale this weekend, which begins on Friday at 9:15 and finishes with Sunday’s late afternoon finals. My partner, JM Plummer, grew up an hour up the road, in Jupiter, and we’re checking in as the 15 seed….