Kerri Walsh Jennings, April Ross go for AVP beach volleyball sweep

Armed with a new partner and the responsibility of being the star attraction in a fledgling league, Kerri Walsh Jennings is looking to finish off the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals doubles season undefeated at Huntington Beach this weekend.

Starting Friday at 10 a.m. and ending Sunday, the beach volleyball tournament at Huntington Beach is the last stop of the AVP season. There’s also a qualifying round for the bottom-seeded players Thursday, and general admission is free.

Walsh Jennings and her new teammate, April Ross, have won all six of the AVP’s events this year, including the Manhattan Beach Open last month. Since becoming partners late last season, they have won seven of eight AVP events. Their only loss came last year at Huntington Beach. A win this year would give the duo a sweep of the 2014 season.

The potential undefeated season is even more impressive considering they have been playing together for less than a year. Ross won a silver medal in the 2012 London Olympics and has had plenty of success on the international tour, while Walsh Jennings was a part of arguably the greatest beach volleyball team of all time with Misty May-Treanor; together they won three Olympic gold medals.

After May-Treanor retired, Walsh Jennings and Ross paired up with the goal of the 2016 Rio Olympics in mind.

“There’s definitely some bittersweetness with the transition, because we both came from successful partnerships,” Walsh Jennings said. “I love Misty with all my heart, and last year, I cried a lot. I shed a lot of tears. The process for me was not letting go, necessarily, but transitioning. There was so much emotion from that life lived with Misty that I had to kind of grieve that a little bit. It wasn’t because I was lacking enthusiasm for April and I, it’s just when you had something so amazing, you have to go through that process.”

On the men’s side of the tour, parity reigns. The six AVP tournaments have had four different winners, although Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson have won three of the last four. They have a shot to win their third tournament in a row, especially after Olympian Phil Dalhausser withdrew due to an ongoing abdominal injury.

As a whole, the AVP has had its ups and downs. The tour suspended operations in 2010 because of financial hardships, tech executive Donald Sun bought the league in 2012, and the full seven-stop tour continued in 2013. Having players such as Walsh Jennings and Ross along with events such as the one at Huntington help, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to get beach volleyball into the mainstream.

“I feel like we’re a start-up again,” Walsh Jennings said. “Our sport is so amazing, and there’s so much opportunity now with the NCAA picking up sand volleyball, and we need a very strong, thriving domestic tour. It’s literally my mission to grow this sport in the U.S., and having a strong domestic tour is vital to the lifeline to our sport.”