The AVP beach volleyball tour will return to Manhattan this week. No, not Manhattan Beach—Pier 25/26 in New York City’s Hudson River Park.

For the second consecutive year, the AVP built a beach volleyball stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. The 2015 event was a huge success and a fan favorite, with big upsets throughout the qualifier and main draw and two three-set finals.

First up will be tomorrow’s qualifier, which features 34 men’s and 27 women’s teams. Before you start scanning Periscope to find Thursday and Friday’s matches (the AVP will be streaming live Saturday starting at 10:30 a.m. ET and Sunday starting at 10 a.m. ET), here are five things to keep an eye on throughout the weekend.

1. The Sand Crabbs snagged the No. 1 seed 

Taylor and Trevor Crabb, the undeniable breakthrough stars of the 2016 AVP season, turned their stellar 2016 tour finishes (two seconds and one third) into the top seed for this weekend’s tournament in NYC. The brothers’ biggest competition will come from No. 2 seeds Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena, who are playing in only their second AVP event of the season. Dalhausser and Lucena, who recently earned a gold at the FIVB Hamburg Grand Slam, took ninth in their first AVP event of 2016, the Huntington Beach Open, and forfeited their second and third matches due to injury.

2. Injury spawns new partnerships

With Ryan Doherty still out of commission due to an ankle injury, John Mayer picked up Stafford Slick for the New York City Open. Doherty gave this statement to the AVP about the injury, which occurred prior to the AVP Seattle Open: “At a practice with Phil [this week], I jumped to block and was blinded by a glare off his head, causing me to twist my ankle when I landed. (I didn’t make contact with anyone or do anything crazy, just one of those accidents that happen[s] when you play on a shifting surface).”

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Slick is also battling an ailment—he sustained a severe eye injury during the AVP New Orleans Open. He had to sit out the Huntington Beach event, but returned to competition in Seattle where he took a ninth with Ty Tramblie.

Slick’s former partner Billy Allen paired with Theo Brunner in Slick’s absence. After winning the Seattle Open and qualifying for the FIVB Hamburg Major, it seems the Brunner/Allen partnership is here to stay. But fans in NYC won’t get to see this new duo in action; they are competing in the FIVB tournament in Olsztyn, Poland, this week.

In addition, Sean Rosenthal aggravated a nagging back injury playing in the wet, windy conditions at the AVP New Orleans Open earlier in the season. NYC will be his first tournament back in action. With his former partner Brunner in Poland with Allen, Rosenthal picked up Jeremy Casebeer. Casebeer’s former partner, Derek Olson, signed up for NYC with Ed Ratledge.

3. Emily Stockman and Amanda Dowdy turn a loss into a positive

Stockman and Dowdy fell to Amaranta Navarro and Ester Ribera of Spain in the first round of the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam yesterday. The duo then quickly hopped on a plane to make it to New York in time to compete in this week’s AVP event. They’ll come in as the No. 7 seed, and will hope to best their current team-high, third-place AVP finish.

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4. Bracket-busters Kelly Claes and Sara Hughes return to the scene of the crime

A year ago, college beach volleyball players Claes and Hughes stormed through the AVP New York City Open qualifier all the way to a third-place finish in the main draw. Now rising seniors at USC, Claes and Hughes will bring the momentum of their second-consecutive collegiate national title into the 2016 NYC Open and will hope to recapture the magic of their 2015 appearance in the Big Apple.

5. Locals looking for glory in packed qualifier field

The AVP New York Open qualifier, which was featured in our 15 Must Play Beach Volleyball Tournaments, always attracts a healthy group of local talent. Here are the highlights of this year’s East Coast men’s qualifier field:

• Shane Donohue (Freehold, New Jersey) and Pennsylvania native Andrew Dentler are the locals with the highest qualifier seed. Donohue made the main draw in last year’s New Orleans Open and Manhattan Beach Open, while Dentler earned his best AVP finish, a 13th, in the 2014 Cincinnati Open.
  
• Kris Fraser (Belmar, New Jersey) and Josue Castillo (Garfield, New Jersey), both products of the Ramapo College men’s volleyball program, will pair up for their first AVP qualifier as a team. Last year, Fraser made it to the final round of the qualifier bracket in NYC with Donohue, while Castillo took a 21st with Danko Iordanov.
  
• Long Island native Kyle O’Neill and Mainer Brian Wells won their first match in the 2014 DO AC AVP Invitational before facing Hudson Bates and Dave McKienzie—two high-level players who are now main-draw regulars. Wells and O’Neill are likely hoping for a chance at redemption, and an easier draw, in this year’s NYC Open.
  
• Greg Hunter and Mike Salak have perhaps the shortest commute to Pier 25 for the qualifier. Hailing from West Hempstead and Brooklyn, New York, respectively, these two are comfortable partners who regularly play together in local tournaments. This will likely give the duo an advantage over other teams thrown together at the last minute for the sake of the AVP event.

On the women’s side, local talent is much less abundant in the qualifier, which puts a lot of pressure on New York native Dana Fiume to represent by advancing to the main draw. Fiume and her partner Amanda Wiggins snagged the No. 1 seed in the qualifier. The Island Park, New York, native enjoyed a breakout season in 2015, and recorded three ninth-place finishes, including the 2015 NYC Open.

Other locals in the women’s qualifier include New York natives and University of South Carolina Aiken players Julia Forster and Samantha Lukralle and Melanie Pavels (North Woodmere, New York), who is partnering with UMass Lowell assistant coach Lauren DeTurk.