May-Treanor, Walsh Win Semis at Worlds

Becky Murdy
Assistant, Media Relations and Publications
Phone: 719-228-6800
E-Mail: becky.murdy@usav.org

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (June 18, 2011) – The U.S. beach team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh remained undefeated Saturday, winning its semifinal match at the 2011 FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Championships being played in Rome.

May-Treanor (Santa Monica, Calif.) and Walsh (San Jose, Calif.) pocketed their seventh win of the tournament when they defeated China’s eighth-seeded team of Chen Xue and Xi Zhang 21-17, 15-21, 15-10 in 48 minutes, advancing them to the FIVB World Championship title match. In the tiebreaking set, the score was tied seven times up to 7-all before May-Treanor and Walshed finished the match on an 8-3 scoring thanks to strong net play that allowed for transition points.

May-Treanor scored 22 kills, 17 digs and an ace in the semifinal victory, while Walsh contributed 10 kills, four blocks, four digs and an ace. The beach pair are now a combined 32-1 in FIVB World Championship matches.

“I think any time you have struggles in a tournament and come out with the win, that only makes you stronger because in the next match in a similar scenario, you can say ‘ok, we’ve been here before,'" May-Treanor said in an FIVB press release following the semifinal round. "So you learn from every experience and you learn what to do and what not to do.”

“We were down big in game two and we still felt we were going to win, and we still had that faith in ourselves in game two," Walsh added. "And even though we lost pretty big in the second set, we carried that confidence into game three and then came out on top.”

The American duo improved their career record over Xue and Zhang to 8-2 following the semifinal round victory. Possibly as deja vu, May-Treanor and Walsh defeated their Chinese opponents in the semifinal round of the 2007 FIVB World Championships played in Gstaad, site of their last FIVB Beach World Championship.

The final hurdle standing between fifth-seeds May-Treanor's and Walsh’s fourth FIVB World Championship title are top-seeds Larissa Franca and Juliana Felisberta Da Silva of Brazil, who came out victorious in their semifinal match over 22nd-seeds Hana Klapalova and Lenka Hajeckova of the Czech Republic.

Walsh and May-Treanor, who are 11-5 overall versus their upcoming gold-medal match opponents in FIVB events, captured FIVB World Championship titles in 2003 (Rio De Janeiro), 2005 (Berlin) and 2007 (Gstaad). The Americans defeated Juliana and Larissa in the 2005 FIVB Beach World Championship gold-medal match.

Both the gold and bronze-medal matches are slated for Sunday on the center court at Foro Italico in Rome. The gold-medal match is slated to begin at 7:15 p.m. Rome Time (10:15 a.m. Pacific Time)

May-Treanor and Walsh will be playing in their 47th FIVB gold-medal match in 63 tournaments. The Americans are on a role after winning the Beijing Grand slam last weekend. Just over a month ago May-Treanor suffered a sprained medial collateral ligament (MCL) during the Sanya Open in China that forced her to miss time on the sand.

The U.S. has won the last four FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships on the women's side. Aside from the three titles won consecutively by May-Treanor and Walsh, Jen Kessy and April Ross captured the most recent event held in 2009 at Stavanger, Norway.

The next stop on the FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Tour will be the ConocoPhillips Grand Slam Stavanger in Norway. Five U.S. women’s teams will compete June 27-July 2 while five U.S. men’s teams play June 28-July 3.

For videos and interviews at the FIVB Swatch World Championships,click here.

For the 2011 FIVB Swatch World Championships full-color media guide, click here.

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

Tags: 2011 FIVB World Tour, 2011 SWATCH World Tour, FIVB, FIVB beach, FIVB World Championship, FIVB World Tour, Kerri Walsh