U.S. Men's Beach Teams Advance in Finland

B.J. Hoeptner Evans
Manager, Media Relations and Publications
Phone: (719) 228-6800
E-Mail: bj.evans@usav.org

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Aug. 20, 2010) – The U.S. men’s beach volleyball team of Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers advanced to the fourth round on Friday at the US$380,000 PAF Open, part of the SWATCH FIVB World Tour, in Mariehamn, Åland, Finland.

Meanwhile, the U.S. women’s beach team of Jen Kessy (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) and April Ross (Costa Mesa, Calif.) finished fifth on Friday.

The top-ranked Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Fla.) and Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.) got an injury forfeit victory over Brazil’s eighth-ranked Benjamin Insfran and Bruno Oscar Schmidt in Friday’s third round.

On Saturday, Dalhausser and Rogers are scheduled to play China’s fourth-ranked Penggen Wu and Linyin Xu in the fourth round.

The U.S. men’s beach team of Casey Jennings (Las Vegas, Nev.) and Kevin Wong (Honolulu, Hawaii), seeded 24th, is also still alive after winning two consolation matches on Friday.

Jennings and Wong opened the day by upsetting Netherlands’ seventh-ranked Daan Spijkers and Emiel Boersma, 21-17, 21-19 in 50 minutes. They followed that with a 21-11, 21-17 victory over 17th-seeded Karl Jaani and Rivo Vesik of Estonia.

Jennings and Wong are scheduled to face Latvia’s sixth-ranked Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins on Saturday.

The men’s semifinals and finals will be played on Sunday.

Kessy and Ross battled in their first match against Brazil’s top-seeded Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca, but lost, 2-1 (19-21, 21-15, 15-11) in 61 minutes. Kessy and Ross moved to the consolation bracket, where they fell to third-seeded Chen Xue and Xi Zhang of China, 21-14, 21-15 in 36 minutes.

The women’s and men’s medal matches in Finland, on Aug. 21 and 22 respectively, will be shown live at universalsports.com at 10 a.m. ET both days.

For more information on this and other SWATCH FIVB World Tour events, click here.

Tags: April Ross, Beach, Beach Volleyball, Casey Jennings, FIVB beach, FIVB World Tour, Jennifer Kessy, Phil Dalhausser, Todd Rogers