Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser set the bar incredibly high after their record-setting FIVB season of 2010, when they won nine tournaments.
The local beach volleyball professionals picked up where they left off at the start of this season’s international tour, winning the first two tournaments and reaching the final in the third.
The team then got hit with a big injury, the 6-9 Dalhausser spraining his left ankle during a second-round match at the Beijing Grand Slam. He finished out the match but couldn’t go in the quarterfinals and the team withdrew.
The injury affected the team’s play at the World Championships in Rome, where it got as far as the quarterfinals.
It was the same finish at Stavanger, Norway.
“What are you going to do?,” Rogers told Presidiosports.com in an email. “Phil got injured and it affected his play and the way we play. Hopefully, we can get back on track here in Gstaad.”
The team is in the second round at the tournament in the Swiss village, where it has won twice before.
Dalhausser’s ankle is the first major injury suffered by the team since joining forces in 2006.
“There are been a few smaller ones over the years but this was the only one that affected more than one tourney,” Rogers said. “We didn’t pay in 2008 in San Diego before the Olympics because Phil had a hit issue. We lost a match when m back went out in San Diego the following year.”
On the domestic beach volleyball front, Rogers said it was unlikely he and Dalhausser would play in the three-event tour sponsored by Jose Cuervo and backed by USA Volleyball due to conflicts with the FIVB Tour and other commitments.
“Manhattan Beach conflicts with a FIVB event and the other two conflict with a sponsor event we are already scheduled to do,” he said.
The $200,000 Manhattan Beach Open, the first event on the $500,000 Jose Cuervo Pro Beach Volleyball Series, Aug. 26-28, is scheduled the same time as a tournament in the Netherlands.
Rogers said the AVP brand is trying to do a single event in early October, but it was unlikely he and Dalhausser would play in it.
