Jennings, Wong to Play for FIVB Gold Medal

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

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Aug. 28, 2010) – The U.S. men’s beach volleyball team of Casey Jennings and Kevin Wong will play in Sunday’s gold medal match against eighth-seeded Brazilians Benjamin Insfran and Bruno Oscar Schmidt at the US$380,000 Milner Open, part of the SWATCH FIVB World Tour, in The Hague, Netherlands.

The men’s top-ranked team of Matt Fuerbringer (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and Nick Lucena (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) will play for bronze as will the U.S. women’s team of Angie Akers (Fort Wayne, Ind.) and Tyra Turner (Fort Meyers Beach, Fla.).

Jennings (Las Vegas, Nev.) will be playing in his second FIVB World Tour finale while Wong (Honolulu, Hawaii) has a 2-3 title match record with his last appearance being at the 2003 Austrian Grand Slam with Stein Metzger.

In the fourth round, Jennings and Wong won a battle over Benjamin and Bruno, 2-1 (27-29, 21-18, 15-12) in 1 hour, 6 minutes.

After getting into the main draw via a “lucky loser” drawing, the 21st-ranked Jennings and Wong reached the semifinals on Friday, and then had to wait to find out their opponents.

It turned out to be Fuerbringer and Lucena, who defeated Norway’s 13th-seeded Martin Spinnangr and Tarjei Skarlund (21-15, 21-12 in 37 minutes) and Italy’s 22nd-ranked Matteo Martino and Matteo Ingrosso (23-21, 21-17 in 37 minutes) in the consolation bracket to reach the semifinals.

In the semifinal battle between the two U.S. teams, Jennings and Wong took a 21-16, 24-22 win in 44 minutes.

Fuerbringer and Lucena will play Netherlands’ 10th-seeded Daan Spijkers and Emiel Boersma for the bronze medal.

In the women’s bracket, Akers and Turner will play Netherlands’ ninth-seeded Marleen Van Iersel and Sanne Keizer for the bronze medal on Sunday. The Dutch team defeated Akers and Turner in the fourth round, sending them to the consolation bracket.

The U.S. team came back in consolation to defeat Netherlands’ 10th-ranked Madelein Meppelink and Marloes Wesselink, 2-1 (21-15, 13-21, 15-9) in 50 minutes to reach the semifinals. But there, Akers and Turner fell to China’s third-seeded Chen Xue and Xi Zhang, 21-15, 21-18 in 34 minutes.

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

The men’s and women’s gold medal matches from The Hague will be available on-demand on Sunday at UniversalSports.com.

Tags: Angie Akers, Beach, Beach Volleyball, Casey Jennings, FIVB beach, FIVB World Tour, Matt Fuerbringer, Nick Lucena, Tyra Turner