Kessy, Ross Pull Upset to Advance to Poland Semis

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

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (July 29, 2011) – The U.S. women’s beach volleyball team of Jen Kessy and April Ross upset compatriots Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh on Friday to advance to the semifinals of Poland’s Mazury Orlen Grand Slam, part of the 2011 FIVB Swatch World Tour.

On the men’s side, the U.S. teams of Phil Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Fla.) and Todd Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.), ranked second, and Jake Gibb (Bountiful, Utah) and Sean Rosenthal (Redondo Beach, Calif.) ranked 16th, have advanced to the second round of single-elimination play.

In the women’s quarterfinals, Kessy (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) and Ross (Costa Mesa, Calif.), seeded fifth, defeated May-Treanor (Santa Monica, Calif.) and Walsh (San Jose, Calif.), 21-16, 21-19 in 33 minutes.

Pleased with their first win in eight tries against May-Treanor and Walsh on the FIVB Swatch World Tour, Ross told the FIVB, “We played our game today and it worked. We watched video of our loss to them in Rome at the World Championships. We concentrated on our missed opportunities and looked for what we could do differently. Jen and I really trusted each other well in this match on our calls.

“They made a few more mistakes then they normally do and that was a key to our victory as well. After losing a match in pool play we re-grouped and learned from our mistakes. We get frustrated if we don’t play well and this win puts us in the semis where we want to be in our next step.  In retrospect, there aren’t a lot of teams who can say they have beaten Misty and Kerri.”

Kessy and Ross will face Brazil’s fourth-seeded Maria Antonelli and Talita Antunes in Saturday’s semifinals. The other semifinal match will see Brazil’s top-seeded Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca take on China’s third-seeded Chen Xue and Xi Zhang.

Kessy and Ross advanced to the quarterfinals with a 21-19, 26-24 victory in 45 minutes over Brazil’s 30th-ranked Liliane Maestrini and Angela Vieira in the second round.

May-Treanor and Walsh advanced with a second-round forfeit victory over Italy’s sixth-seeded Greta Cicolari and Marta Menegatti. According to the FIVB, Italy withdrew because Cicolari was having problems with the knee she had surgery on approximately one year ago.

The U.S. women’s team of Angie Akers (Fort Wayne, Ind.) and Nichole Branagh (Orinda, Calif.), ranked 19th, won their second-round match with an upset of Germany’s seventh-ranked Sara Goller and Laura Ludwig, 21-19, 21-15 in 36 minutes. However Akers and Branagh fell in the quarterfinals to Xue and Zhang Xi, 21-12, 21-15 in 30 minutes.

On the men’s side Dalhausser and Rogers came back from losing their first two pool play matches to advance to the second round along with their compatriots, Gibb and Rosenthal.

Dalhausser and Rogers advanced to the first round of single elimination by winning their final pool play match over Latvia’s 15th-seeded Aleksandrs Samoilous and Ruslans Sorokins, 21-17, 21-13 in 39 minutes.

In the first round, they defeated Kazakhstan’s 26th-ranked Alexey Sidorenko and Alexandr Dyachenko, 21-15, 21-11 in 34 minutes.

“Yesterday was just one of those days that you can have, but fortunately we were able to bounce back today and we are still alive here in Poland,” Rogers told the FIVB. “We like this event and are the defending champions, but it hasn’t been easy. We made a lot of mistakes yesterday and while we’re confident enough in our ability to not play ‘desperate’, we know what we had to do against the Latvians and we reduced our error significantly and got the job done.

“Against the Kazakhstan team, we took control immediately and never let up.  It was a good effort for us and now we face a very tough and talented and very young Russian team. We just need to take care of ourselves and we’ll be okay.”

In Saturday’s second round they will face Russia’s 12th-seeded Konstantin Semenov and Yaroslav Koshkarev.

After going 1-1 on Thursday, Gibb and Rosenthal lost their final pool play match to Brazil’s top-seeded Alison Cerutti and Emanuel Rego, 21-17, 21-19 in 34 minutes. However, they advanced to the first round where they defeated Czech Republic’s 18th-seeded Petr Benes and Premysl Kubala, 21-17, 21-19 in 35 minutes.

On Saturday, Gibb and Rosenthal will face Germany’s 10th-seeded David "Hase" Klemperer and Eric Koreng.

The third U.S. men’s team of Casey Jennings (Las Vegas, Nev.) and Kevin Wong (Honolulu, Hawaii), seeded 19th, won its final pool play match on Friday, defeating Austria’s 30th-seeded Clemens Doppler and Matthias Mellitzer, 21-17, 21-16 in 44 minutes.

After finishing pool play at 2-1, Jennings and Wong advanced to the first round where they fell to Switzerland’s seventh-seeded Patrick Heuscher and Jefferson Bellaguarda, 21-19, 21-17 in 43 minutes.

For more information on the 2011 FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Tour, please visit http://www.fivb.org/EN/BeachVolleyball/Competitions/WorldTour/2011/index.asp.

Tags: Angie Akers, April Ross, Beach, Beach Volleyball, Casey Jennings, FIVB World Tour, Jake Gibb, Jennifer Kessy, Kerri Walsh, Kevin Wong, mobile, Nicole Branagh, Phil Dalhausser, Sean Rosenthal, Todd Rogers