For Durability, This Team Can’t Be Beat at Beach Volleyball : Venice Open: Linda Chisholm-Carrillo and Liz Masakayan are the only team that participated in the 1991 event to remain intact.

Angela Rock and Karolyn Kirby were such a dominating team on the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. tour in 1991 that opposing teams were often left battling for second place.

Rock and Kirby combined for a WPVA team-record 12 victories and placed in the top four in the five other tour events. Rock, voted the tour’s best spiker, and Kirby, the most valuable player and best setter, seemed like an unstoppable team.

Until early July.

Despite winning five tournaments in 1992, Kirby and Rock went their separate ways.

Their breakup has set off a domino effect that has seen 14 of the top 20 players switch partners.

“Not until this year did you see the top 10 teams split up,” tour player Elaine Roque said. “If they did, it was unusual. The level of play of the whole tour has risen so much that more and more teams can finish in the top four.”

Said Rock: “It’s become like roulette. No one knows where the ball is going to land. The stakes are so high that people are going to keep looking until they can regain that magical moment. Once the karma or the positive energy is gone, people go out the door looking for better options.”

When the WPVA tour stops this weekend at Venice for the $60,000 Coors Light U.S. Open, only one of team will be intact from the 1991 event.

Former Pepperdine standout Linda Chisholm-Carrillo and Liz Masakayan (UCLA, Santa Monica High) discovered that savoir-faire and have prospered while others played their version of star search. They have won five tournaments in 1992.

On Sunday, second-seeded Chisholm-Carrillo-Masakayan upset top-seeded Kirby-Nancy Reno to win the $40,000 Boulder Open. Their victory ended Kirby’s and Reno’s streak of tournament victories at two.

“It was good to beat a team like that because they’re tall, quick and have a good jump-set,” Chisholm-Carrillo said. “They’re the best team out there and it was a great accomplishment.”

But the Chisholm-Carrillo-Masakayan team is clicking and the rest of the tour is envious. They have each won $48,675 in 1992 and rank second on the money list.

Roque, who also is the Santa Monica College women’s volleyball coach, and former Bruin Patty Dodd have remained teammates during the recent turmoil. Roque began the season with Pepperdine Coach Nina Matthies, but doesn’t plan to make another change.

“I think a lot of people would say they would like to play with Liz Masakayan or Karolyn Kirby,” Roque said. “It depends on your style of play and your strengths whether you’re a right or left side player, a hitter or blocker.

“Linda and Liz have good chemistry. They match up well with each other’s weaknesses. They wouldn’t win with just any other player.”

Masakayan, an All-American at UCLA and a member of the 1988 U.S. Olympic team, quit the national team in 1990 because of knee problems. After undergoing two operations on her left knee and one on her right within a two-year span, Masakayan joined the beach tour in 1991.

She briefly played with Dodd before asking to become Chisholm-Carrillo’s partner.

“I think my game was pretty inconsistent and I was looking for someone more steady,” Masakayan said. “She took a risk. I wasn’t playing well at the time.”

Chisholm-Carrillo, who won a silver medal as a member of the 1984 Olympic team, ranks second on the all-time career money list ($156,142.50). Before teaming with Masakayan, Chisholm-Carrillo had won a tournament in 1991 with Matthies in Clearwater, Fla.

Chisholm-Carrillo, however, was ready for a change.

“I liked (Liz) because she was young and a good all-around player,” Chisholm-Carrillo said. “We complemented each other’s game. I can block and she’s quick around the block.”

After they joined forces in May, 1991, Chisholm-Carrillo and Masakayan placed in the top four at nine of 11 tournaments they entered, including a victory at the World Championships at Las Vegas.

In addition to winning five tournaments this season, Chisholm-Carrillo and Masakayan have three seconds, one third and three fourths. They have a match record of 65-22.

Masakayan has had trouble with her knees after playing on hard-packed sand in Minneapolis and Boulder.

“It’s the end of the season and my knees are getting a little squeaky,” she said.

Chisholm-Carrillo, however, is hopeful of finishing the season with Masakayan.

“I think it’s important to stay together and get better tournament to tournament,” Chisholm-Carrillo said. “You can’t win them all.”

The tournament begins Friday at Navy Street in Venice Beach with a four-woman tournament. Preliminary rounds for the two-woman event begin Saturday at 9 a.m. and will continue Sunday at 8:30 a.m. The double-elimination finals are scheduled to start Sunday about 2:30 p.m.