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Sports

Wachtfogel and Rosenthal Capture Manhattan Beach Crown

Tealle Hunkus and Heather Lowe win the women's title.

The partnership of South Bay locals Aaron Wachtfogel and Sean Rosenthal is less than a week old, but they sure made good use of their time together. The duo captured the Manhattan Beach Open crown this weekend after deciding this past Monday to play together for the first time. 

Wachtfogel and Rosenthal came into Sunday's play in the driver's seat after going undefeated through Saturday's play. They would finish Sunday the same way they started, rolling through the competition without dropping a match.

Both Rosenthal and Wachtfogel employed vicious jump serves, strong defense, and timely offense to keep their opponents on their heels in every match.  They put an exclamation point on their weekend by capping off their championship victory with a 15-4 drubbing of Dana Camacho and Will Strickland.

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The exhausted team of Camacho and Strickland offered little resistance in the championship after fighting their way through the losers bracket to reach the finals.  A marathon loser's bracket final against Matt Prosser and John Mayer that Camacho and Strickland escaped from with a 15-13 win, proved to take too much of a toll on the contenders, particularly Camacho.

"I'm completely exhausted" Camacho said at the end of the match. "I was cramping, I've got blisters all over my feet. We really used up all of our energy in the previous match. Neither of us had much left for the final."

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For Wachtfogel, coming out of the gate strong was a major factor in the championship victory and just as important to calm his nerves. Watchfogel alluded to his and Rosenthal's blistering start to the game, where they jumped out to a big lead of 7-0. The duo stretched their advantage all the way to 12-2 before claiming the title with their 15-4 win. 

"It was a good thing we came out with a run like that or else I would have been pretty nervous," Wachtfogel said.  

For Rosenthal being on the same side of the net as Wachtfogel was a welcome relief from the vicious spike Wachtfogel battered his opponents with all weekend.

"The guy probably hits the heaviest ball on tour," Rosenthal said. "I would almost say no doubt about it. I've been on the side trying to dig it and it's tough, but setting him the ball and watching him tattoo people all weekend was a lot of fun.

Rosenthal and Wachtfogel grew up together in Redondo Beach and when they decided to play together there was really only one goal.

"We always wanted to play together and when we made the decision we came out here to win the title," Wachtfogel said. 

Rosenthal added that once the announcement was made that the open would return to the traditional format, it was a no-brainer to partner with Wachtfogel.

"As soon as I heard about the tournament format I wanted Aaron as my partner," Rosenthal said. "Even if Jake (Gibb) would've wanted to play I still would have went with Aaron because I called him first and the set-up was perfect for us."

Rosenthal won the AVP Manhattan Beach Open last year with partner Jake Gibb—a victory he admitted was a bit sweeter, being his first win—but he was still going to savor this year's title.

"I grew up loving this game since I was a little kid, and there was no way I was going to miss this tournament. To win here, and do it back to back, it still means a lot."

Wachtfogel said he had no trouble with the return to the traditional format of sideout scoring and the bigger court.

"It felt surprisingly good to play the old school rules," he said. "On this court you have to take more chances and be more creative to score points. You use your jump serve more often and you try to put the ball into deeper spots because there's just so much extra space out there. It really gives you a lot more freedom and opens the game up."

For the past 50 years the winners of the Open are honored with the inscription of their names on the Manhattan Beach Pier. Most players dream of this honor, and Wachtfogel is no exception.

"I've been trying to do this my whole life," he said. "All my heroes are up there, and now my name is there too."

Women's Recap

Winning in the same fashion as Sean Rosenthal and Aaron Wachtfogel were women's champions Tealle Hunkus and Heather Lowe. The pair also went undefeated through both days of their title quest.

The partners came into the tournament under the radar, but scored a big upset over the top seeded team of Priscilla Lima and Angela Lewis. Building on that momentum, Lowe and Hunkus found themselves in the championship needing only one win to put their names on the pier.

Standing in their way was the Chicago tandem of Kathryn Babcock and Erin Gray.  The championship match was tightly contested as both teams traded points early on their way to a 6-6 stalemate. 

A powerful cross-court kill by Hunkus started a 6-0 run that pushed her team's lead to 12-6. Babcock and Gray, needing to win two matches to take the title, refused to go quietly, going on a 4-0 run to cut their deficit to 2 points at 13-11.

Hunkus again came up with another big block to push her team to match point. A perfectly placed touch by Lowe at match point sealed the 15-11 victory. 

The fact that not many people would have picked Hunkus and Lowe to win Sunday was of little concern, said Hunkus, because they believed in each other. 

"It was a huge goal of ours to win this tournament," she said. "We had an awesome day yesterday and we carried that over into today. We came out fired up, kept the energy high, we played aggressive, and that momentum carried us through today."

Lowe also attributed the team's victory to their successful partnership and their preparation.

"We have great chemistry, we know exactly where the other is going to be on the court. We're a high-energy team and we play our best when we're hustling around the court at all times. We trained hard before the event and to go through the whole thing undefeated made it that much better."

Men's and women's teams on both sides split a $4,000 purse, while the second place finishers split $2,000.

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