Almost exactly seven months ago, Taylor Sander was walking back to the site of the Itapema World Tour four-star, on the heels of the first win of his professional beach volleyball career, which also happened to be his first career match.
Beach Volleyball World Champs 2022
Taylor Sander is playing the long game, with a valuable learning experience in Rome
Sander enjoyed a decorated indoor career for the United States. Fresh on the beach, he's picking up as many lessons as he can.
Published 10:21, 16 Jun 2022
He was asked who he and Taylor Crabb had next.
He wasn’t positive. Some guy named Alison?
He’s not scared of making a joke, Sander. But in that specific circumstance, he wasn’t kidding: he didn’t know who Alison Cerutti was. Didn’t know that he had won a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics, a World Championship in 2015, an Olympic gold medal in 2016. Didn’t know that he’s maybe the most decorated blocker still playing the game. To Sander, he was just a big Brazilian dude he had to play next.
It’s important to remember scenes like that, for it puts Sander’s beach career in much-needed perspective. However ludicrously talented of a player he was indoors, Sander is still just a rookie on the beach, so fresh to the sand that, yeah, he might not know every single player he might come across.
“I’m new to beach volleyball. I have a lot to learn, I’m definitely going to learn a lot from this,” Sander said. “Everybody’s good, everybody can play volleyball. It’s just getting better at what the best teams in the world do well. I have a lot of work to do and I’m excited for that.”
For the first time in his career, Sander finally had a close-up view of the best in the world. This week’s World Championships, in Rome, Italy, mark just his third international tournament. The first came in November, when he met that big Brazilian fellow. The next was this March, in Tlaxcala, Mexico, in which he and Taylor Crabb were the recipients of one of the tournament’s most brutal draws, meeting Latvian Olympian Edgars Tocs in the first round of the qualifier, and Brazilians Bruno and Saymon in the second. They made a wondrous show of things, beating Tocs and young Kristians Fokerots, then falling in a magnificent three-set match to Bruno and Saymon, 25-23, 27-29, 12-15.
But that was it: That was the extent of Sander’s international career on the beach, save for a qualifying event at a NORCECA tournament in the Dominican Republic. If it was a baptism by fire that Sander needed to expedite his already expedited learning curve, Rome would do the trick.
“For me, I didn’t think I could walk out here and just win medals. I’ve watched these guys on TV, followed Taylor’s career with Jake [Gibb], and these guys can play volleyball,” Sander said. “I have a lot to learn, and I’m excited for that. It’s a new challenge. I know I can play with these guys. I know me and Taylor can play with these guys. We just need to keep getting better and better. It’s difficult to have a World Championship your first season out. Our goal is to be really good in the Olympics, so we’re just going to use this as a learning experience.”
Difficult, yes, but not overwhelmingly so. Sander was arguably the best player on the court in their opening match against France’s Youssef Krou and Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, which they won, 21-18, 20-22, 15-13. He was steady again in an elimination match against Austria’s Robin Seidl and Phillipp Waller, another team with an abundance of beach experience of success. His serve has already made a devastating impact on the AVP, to the point that when Phil Dalhausser was interviewed following an epic three-set match against Sander and Crabb in New Orleans earlier this month, Dalhausser paused, searching for the proper words to describe Sander. In the end, he came up empty.
“Yeah,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head. “That guy serves hard.”
He serves hard, and sides out well enough that teams are rarely courageous enough to give him the ball. His blocking, so different from the indoor game, is already becoming dynamic, with Sander making big, disruptive moves outside of his body. Is a 17th-place finish what he and Crabb set out to do when they flew to Rome? Not exactly. But as Sander even said himself: He wasn’t going to walk out on the beach and win medals. He’s playing the long game – one with an eye on the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
“We’re best friends, and we get to have this adventure together and he as well as Rich [Lambourne, their coach] do a good job of helping me try to learn the game and understand to be patient, because it’s a long process,” Sander said. “Nobody just gets good over just three months or whatever I’ve been playing.
“I know I can play with these guys. Physically, I can play with all these guys. It’s a mental thing. And beach volleyball is a game of not making errors. That’s what the best teams in the world do: they’re really good at not making errors.”
Watch all the matches at the Beach Volleyball World Championships Rome 2022 on Volleyball TV.
