Evans/Budinger to Play Australia to Advance in Paris

PARIS, France (August 2, 2024) – After splitting their first two matches at the Paris Olympics, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans dropped their final pool match to Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira of Spain 2-0 (21-18, 21-11) at Eiffel Tower Stadium on Friday. Herrera/Gavira moved to 2-1.

With the win by Netherlands over France, Budinger and Evans finish third in the pool and avoid outright elimination. The U.S. pair will play Australia’s Thomas Hodges and Zachery Schubert in the “Lucky Loser” round on Saturday at 2 p.m. PT (11 p.m. in Paris). The match will be shown live on the USA Network or Peacock.

With the format at the Paris Olympics, all the third-place finishers in pool play move on in some capacity. The top two third-place teams automatically advance to the Round of 16 as the 13 and 14 seed. The other four third-place finishers fall into the lucky loser category to determine who will fill out 15-16 seeds. Tiebreaker placement among third-place pool finishers is first determined by total match points, then set ratio if necessary, and then total point ratio if tiebreaking statistics are still necessary.

“We felt like our game plan was fine but they kind of sniffed out everything we were throwing at them,” Budinger said. “Once you get behind in the chess match, because that’s kind of how we see games at times, and they are one move or two moves ahead of you, it’s pretty tough to come back and win.”

The U.S. jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first set on a Miles Evans ace. Both pairs traded scores until an unsuccessful net fault challenge on a block from Spain made it 7-5 with the U.S. trailing. Evans/Budinger wouldn’t see the lead again until an ace from Budinger made it 15-14. Spain kept pace with a block to secure the lead one last time at 17-16 that held for the rest of the first set.

The second set started as a closely contested battle again, with an ace from Evans drawing the U.S. within a point at 5-6. However, from there, Spain built a three-point gap off a service error and winning a long rally that proved to be too much for Budinger/Evans to overcome.

“Going into that next set was a little bit of a down shift,” Evans said. “Just trying to find that motivation and that aggressiveness. I thought we had a nice little spark there in the second set where we could have turned things around, but they scored three or four points in a row and that kind of added to the spiral, if you will.”

Herrera/Gavira held the advantage in scoring off opposing errors 10-8. Spain held a 6-1 advantage in blocking, while service aces were even at 3-3.