Andy Benesh, Miles Partain looking to end U.S. men’s beach volleyball medal drought

PARIS – For Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, the road to Centre Court at the Eiffel Tower Stadium and the Olympic Games beach volleyball competition is marked by a series of missed exits.

“We’ll start talking about volleyball when we’re driving and we’ll get so into the conversation,” Benesh said, “that before we realize it, we’ve missed our exit.

“That’s happened multiple times.”

Benesh and Partain stayed on course to advance to the Round of 16 in what Partain has called “the Games of a lifetime” with a 21-12, 28-26 win against Morocco’s Mohammed Abicha and Zouheir Elgraoui Tuesday afternoon as temperatures reached the upper 90s.

“I think we were ready for a three-set battle if it went there (but) it’s always nice to get it done in two,” Benesh said.

The Americans needed just 19 minutes to dispatch Abicha and Elgraoui in the first set. But the Moroccans hung tough through a second set that was extended on a controversial ruling following a video review of what initially appeared to be match point for Team USA.

The video review concluded that Benesh’s arm touched the net on what appeared to be a match-winning block.

“I am almost positive the ball came off my arm and then took the top of the tape,” Benesh said. “I was trying to re-challenge it and try to get a different angle because I am positive that I did not touch the net.

“But it happens, they are doing the best they can and there are some optical illusions where maybe it looks like I did (hit the net).

“It’s pretty easy to roll over when stuff like that happens but Miles was supporting me and I think I did a good job of staying in the moment.”

With Cuba beating both Benesh and Partain and Brazil’s George Souto Maior Wanderly and Andre Loyola Stein in its first two matches, Thursday’s match between the U.S. and the Brazilians, the bronze medalists at the 2022 World Championships, will likely decide which team advances to the Round of 16 with the second spot out of Group D.

The U.S. men haven’t won a beach volleyball Olympic medal since 2008.

“The rest of the world has gotten really good at beach volleyball since the last time we won a medal,” Benesh said.

But Benesh and Partain’s fifth place finish at last year’s World Championships suggest the Southern California natives are headed in the right direction.

“It was big,” Benesh said. “We shot up really quick last year. It’s sort of crazy to think about the trajectory we took last year. I think at Worlds it wasn’t too unexpected but taking a step back it’s pretty cool to get fifth at World Champs.”

The pair also had six top 10 finishes on the Beach Pro Tour in 2023 including winning the Gstaad tournament and finishing second in Montreal.

Dain Blanton, who won the Olympic beach gold medal with Eric Fonoimoana in 2000, calls Benesh, 29, “one of the best blockers in the world.”

“Definitely a force to be reckoned with,” Blanton said.

Partain is the best young American beach talent in years. At 22, Partain is the youngest U.S. beach player ever to compete in an Olympic Games, breaking the record of 23 years, 48 days set by Misty May-Treanor at Sydney 2000.

Benesh grew up on the Palos Verdes Peninsula where he is remembered as a standout athlete and student at Silver Spur Elementary and Palos Verdes Intermediate School. He focused on volleyball at Palos Verdes High School after getting cut from the basketball team for as he put it, being “too short and scrawny.”

It was at Palos Verdes High Benesh met Cole Fiers. The two bonded over volleyball.

“We played backyard grass volleyball all the time,” Benesh said.

Benesh grew to be 6-feet-8 and as Fiers headed off to Stanford, Benesh stayed closer to home at USC. After USC he played half a professional indoor season in Lausanne, Switzerland, before back injuries sent him home.

“I thought I would get a normal big boy job,” he said, “but it took a different course.”

Benesh was living at home with his parents while starting out as a financial advisor.

“And I was not a very good salesman,” he said laughing. “A lot of rejection.”

Nine months into the job, Fiers called and asked him to play in a qualifying tournament for an AVP event.

“I was working 12 hours a day. We had a tracker system. We had to cold call 300 people a day,” Benesh said. “Living at home in RPV. It was all on commission and being a bad salesman, I wasn’t really getting paid anything. I know that beach volleyball players don’t make a lot of money but I’m not making a lot of money doing this so I might as well try it.”

Benesh first spotted Partain, when he was playing beach while still at Palisades High School. Partain was just 15, when playing alongside older brother Marcus, then 17, he became the youngest player to make the main draw of an AVP Tour.

Partain was an All-American as a UCLA sophomore but left the Bruins 10 matches into the 2023 season to pursue the beach game, joining Benesh.

“He kept getting better and better every year,” Benesh said of Partain. “It was kind of a no brainer to try and get him. He was the best defender and the World tour is really young too. So he had the youth and the athleticism and physicality. Definitely more modern playing style than a lot of other American players.”

Partain and Benesh in October 2022 in Dubai became the first American players to win on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, the successor to the FIVB World Tour, and the first men’s team on the tour to win after going through qualifying.

“We feel really close,” Benesh said. “We spend a lot of time together. Miles has become a really good friend. And that’s a huge blessing. There are a lot of teams where the partners don’t enjoy spending time together. It’s almost 50 percent of the chemistry. You have the on-court chemisty and the off-court chemistry and they kind of bleed into each other sometimes.

“We’ve gone through a lot together. But a lot of good and but some harder times. But we’ve been there for each other so it’s been a blessing to have him on my team.”