Zartman proving height not everything on AVP tour

	Chrissie Zartman was born and raised in Hermosa Beach, Calif., often referred to as the beach volleyball capital of the world. Chris Smith/AVP
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By Dominic Bonvissuto, SI.com

Among the forest of professional beach volleyball players waiting to check in at the AVP Crocs Tour stop in Huntington Beach, Calif., a freckle-faced girl with sandy blonde hair shuffled through the entrance marked, "Players Registration." Standing 5-foot-3, it would have been easy for her to get lost in the crowd of tall, tanned athletes. One tournament official did notice her, however, and approached. "I'm sorry," he said, "this area is for players only."

"When I told him I was a player, he smiled," Chrissie Zartman said. "I think he thought I was just some kid who played volleyball."

From a statistical perspective, professional beach volleyball is a tall person's game. The average height of the top 40 women on the AVP tour in 2006 is 5-11; the men's average a shade over 6-3. Net height is 7-4 1/8 for women and 7-11 5/8 for men, the same as on an indoor court. But unlike the hard, flat gym floors of the indoor game, beach sand is a wildly inconsistent surface for jumping, inherently suiting the taller players who don't need to leap as high to spike or block. So when Zartman walked her 63-inch, 100-pound frame through the players entrance in Huntington, it was logical for the official to question her status as a professional beach volleyball player.

"I probably look like a little girl that just wants to come and watch," she said. "In a weird way, it was kind of like a compliment that he didn't expect me to be there and I was. So many people have said different things to me to discourage me. I just blow it off or use it as motivation to prove people wrong."

Zartman, 23, first played an AVP event in 2005 and began touring regularly the next summer. As a new player, she and her partner, who changes from week to week, have had to go through a qualifying round on the Thursday of every tournament, needing to win as many as three win-or-go-home matches in order to make it into the main draw Friday through Sunday.

This season, Zartman has qualified in five of nine events, including four of the past five. Her recent run of success has earned Zartman and her current partner, Tiffany Rodriguez, enough points to automatically qualify for this weekend's stop in Seaside Heights, N.J. It's the first time Zartman has earned automatic entry into the main draw, a feat other veteran players say is the first step to becoming a tour regular.

"Even though she's tiny, her skills are way better than anyone else's on tour," said Brooke Hanson, who's in her sixth year on tour. "She puts a lot of pressure on the other team to not make mistakes."