Houston was legit. On many, many levels. I loved it there. The site was a fantastic Tennis Center with all the amenities, the people were incredibly hospitable, and we took a 3rd. What’s not to love? Hell, the weather was even perfect for me; overcast and balmy Sunday morning with a little precipitation in the air and my sunglasses in my bag. Sounds crazy, I’m sure, but that’s how I like it. Lightning bright sunshine and 95 degrees with 85% humidity (like it was on Friday) is actually not the kind of weather that produces my best volleyball. Sure, it’s lovely to view through a window from an air conditioned hotel room, but it’s a whole ‘nother deal when you’re on the court and it feels like life is being sucked out of you directly into the sky.

This was my first time in Houston. I loved Austin in ‘04/’05 (thought it had a wonderful energy about it), but could have done without Dallas the past two years, so Houston was a large question mark. Our first stop after arriving on Thursday evening was the Sheraton Suites near a shopping mall called the Galleria — terrific area of town with a ton of restaurants and shops. After dropping off our bags, we headed straight to the venue to check out the site and sand quality, so that we knew what to expect Friday morning. Granted, I’m a little biased when it comes to Tennis Centers, but Dear God did I love it. More about that in a minute. We peppered, hit some warm up balls and got our legs moving so we didn’t come out lethargic Friday morning when it mattered. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Grand Luxe Café and ate dinner while watching the Lakers get destroyed in Game 6. Fortunately, it was a 7-game series and the final game happened to be in LA. Sorry Rockets fans.

Back to the site – The Westside Tennis and Fitness Center has a magnificent center court, numerous outside courts made of both clay and rebound ace (hard court), 4 indoor courts, two beautiful swimming pools, an incredible gymnasium with every weight lifting apparatus available, a pilates and yoga studio, an indoor basketball court, a soccer field, indoor baseball batting cages and pitching lanes, indoor Golf driving range with practice tees that automatically tee up the next ball for you so you don’t have to bend down, terrific locker rooms, and a full service spa. Let’s just say, if I lived in Houston, there is no doubt I would belong to this place and spend all of my free time there. Seriously, it was awesome. I love it and can’t wait to go back.

That sentiment is probably a tad influenced by our weekend on the sand, I’m not afraid to be honest. I won’t give you the full recap as I did in San Diego, at the risk of boring you to death, but I will mention a couple of the highlights.

We started off with a rematch against Matt Prosser and Pedro Brazao. Only this time, we came out on top. The officiating in this particular match cost our opponents at least three points in the 3rd set and could have made a difference in the end. Not much we can do about it now; only hope it doesn’t happen again. I will say this though, these guys are really good. Pross blocks huge, Pedro plays some rather unassuming, yet smooth, defense, they set each other high and contact the ball even higher. They’re certainly not a team I’d like to play every week.

In the following round we played Phil and Todd again at 9th place in the winner’s bracket on stadium court. It was a meeching. Yes, meeching. I’m not sure how many ways I can say it, they’re just awesome. I’ve thought about it quite a bit, trust me, and there’s no real logical explanation as to how they’re that good, but they are. I mean, for crying out loud, they live in Santa Barbara! There isn’t even another team up there to practice against! Where the hell are they perfecting their craft?! Can I write another sentence regarding Todd and Phil with an exclamation point on the end?!

The good news is, we bounced back this time instead of carrying that demoralizing defeat into the next round. Halverson/Allen played great and took us to 3 sets, but in the end, we prevailed and moved on to 7th. I like both of these players and their games; they’re real smooth, and that’s certainly not a team I want to play early in the tournament.

The weather creeped in Saturday night and turned Houston into Tropical Storm Panama City. Actually, it wasn’t nearly that bad. In fact, it was nothing but rain and some really, really dark clouds. Play was postponed until Sunday morning at 7:30. Yes, you read that correctly, the winner’s brackets, 5th place matches took place at 7:30; brutal, to say the least. Fortunately, we were in the loser’s bracket and didn’t start until 8:30. That one hour might have saved me; I’m not much of a morning person, to put it lightly.

At 7th, we played Matt Olson and Kevin Wong, and at 5th we played San Diego Open Champions, Jeff Nygaard and John Mayer. The volleyball on our side of the net could not have been better. Anthony served great, set awesome, and played outstanding defense. I sided out at a decent rate and got a few blocks when it mattered. All cylinders were firing and we took advantage with two of the biggest wins I’ve had in years.

Quick note – It’s been a really long time since I’ve been in a cross-over. It really has. Chicago, 2007 seems like an eternity ago. You have no idea how insanely difficult it is to get there, and how insanely gratifying it is to know how much time and work it took to get back.

The semi-finals pitted us against the Beast and Professor once again. Highlights included me winning a joust over Phil, Todd winning a joust over me and throwing me on the sand, Phil blocking me over and over and over (as usual), but us hanging in there and playing them the best we’ve played them this year; earning 17 points in the first and 18 points in the second. Todd and Phil are a great team. There’s no doubt about that. They wouldn’t have won the Olympic Gold Medal if they weren’t. But more importantly, they are a great couple of guys who display zero disrespect to their opponents during competition. Sure, I hate playing them and getting beat, but at least I know they’re not going to talk trash, play dirty or argue calls all the way to victory. In fact, I’m stoked we have such a classy representative on the beach for our country, and I wish them the best of luck next month at the FIVB World Championships. Hopefully they can defend their Gold Medal from Switzerland in 2007.

The only negative I can summon up from this past weekend was the overall attendance; but instead of griping here, I already wrote a ‘call to arms’ piece that I’ll post in a minute. Either way, I hope we go back to Houston, so I at least have a shot at a repeat ‘final four’ performance. There’s just not that many places I can attempt to do that…