U.S. Women Win Silver, Bronze in Brazil

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

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (April 22, 2011) – The U.S. women’s beach volleyball team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh took silver while Jen Kessy and April Ross won the bronze on Friday at the Brasilia Open, the opening event of the 2011 SWATCH FIVB World Tour.

The top –ranked U.S. men’s beach volleyball team of Phil Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Fla.) and Todd Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.), the event’s defending champion, will have a showdown with host Brazil on Saturday when it plays Brazil’s fifth-seeded Alison Cerutti and Emanuel Rego for the gold medal.

In the women’s gold medal showdown on Friday, May-Treanor (Santa Monica, Calif.) and Walsh (San Jose, Calif.) came back from losing the first set 21-16 to winning the second, 21-15. Brazil came back to win the third set 15-12.

May-Treanor/Walsh won the $21,000 second-place prize and their 10th career FIVB silver medal together and 53rd total medal.

“We are very proud of our play in Brazil,” Walsh told the FIVB. “We’re frustrated, but Juliana and Larissa are the top team in the world right now and that’s where we want to be again in the future. We haven’t played together for over two years and we have to work more on our technique but we did well all things considered and we love playing in Brazil so it was great to be back here this week.”

The 15th meeting between the two most prominent women’s teams in beach volleyball and 12th time in a gold medal match was close early in all three sets, with all four players making spectacular plays to keep things tight. After this finale, May-Treanor and Walsh still have an 11-4 edge in the series, 8-4 in gold medal matches.

The Brazilians visibly enjoyed the tremendous vocal support of their partisan fans while the veteran Americans continued to display the poise and polish. In the opening set, the score was 8-8 before Juliana and Larissa ran off four straight points. May-Treanor and Walsh closed to 11-10 before the Brazilians gradually pulled away at the end.

The second set was tied at 9-9 when the Americans scored six of the next eight points to take a 15-10 lead. In the deciding third, the teams exchanged points with the Brazilians keeping a one-point lead before the Americans tied it at 12-12. Juliana and Larissa took turns with massive kills for the final three points of the match.

In Friday’s bronze medal match, eighth-seeded Kessy (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) and Ross (Costa Mesa, Calif.) defeated their compatriots Lauren Fendrick (Carlsbad, Calif.) and Brooke Hanson (Woodland Hills, Calif.), seeded 22nd, 25-23, 21-19 in 46 minutes.

Kessy and Ross, who earned their 20th FIVB career podium placement and sixth bronze medal on the FIVB World Tour while improving their international career record against Hanson and Fendrick to 2-1, will split $15,000 and Hanson and Fendrick picked up $11,200 as the fourt- place team.

The fourth-place finish is the best so far for Fendrick and Hanson as a team on the FIVB World Tour. Fendrick finished fourth with Ashley Ivy (Arlington, Texas) in 2009 in Phuket, Thailand. Hanson’s previous best FIVB finish was fifth in Brazil in 2010 with Lisa Rutledge (Vista, Calif.).

Dalhausser and Rogers advanced to the gold medal match by winning their semifinal match on Friday against Brazil’s third-ranked Marcio Araujo and Ricardo Santos, 21-17, 21-13 in 37 minutes.

"It is hot, very hot," Rogers told the FIVB after the match. "I think that this affected them (Ricardo and Marcio Araujo) more than us, because they played a game earlier today. I think that this made the difference.

"We were tired, but we had more energy. They were dying. The strategy was just make them work really hard to get every point. They had a lot of chances, but so did we. They did not convert, we converted more. We have played Alison and Emanuel a lot of times. They know us and we know them. Either way, it’s going to be hot. It will be a hard game tomorrow, but should be fun."

Araujo and Santos advanced to the semifinals by defeating the fourth-seeded U.S. team of Matt Fuerbringer (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and Nick Lucena (Santa Barbara, Calif.), 21-18, 20-22, 15-8 in 56 minutes. Fuerbringer and Lucena won their first match on Friday, defeating Italy’s 28th-ranked Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai, 21-14, 16-21, 15-9 in 46 minutes.

Complete information about the FIVB World Tour is available on the FIVB web site.

Tags: April Ross, Beach, Beach Volleyball, Brooke Hanson, FIVB beach, FIVB World Tour, Jennifer Kessy, Kerri Walsh, Lauren Fendrick, Matt Fuerbringer, Misty May-Treanor, Nick Lucena, Phil Dalhausser, Todd Rogers