USA on to World Tour Finals elimination bracket

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – All four U.S. beach teams have advanced to the elimination bracket at the 2017 FIVB World Tour Finals in Hamburg, Germany.

Pool play concluded Thursday for the final event of the 2017 FIVB beach season at the World Tour Finals in Germany. The U.S. pairs of Theo Brunner/Casey Patterson, April Ross/Lauren Fendrick and Brooke Sweat/Summer Ross head into the single elimination Round of 12. Top seeded Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena won their pool and have earned a bye directly into Saturday’s quarterfinals.

On Friday in the Round of 12, Fendrick/A. Ross will face Switzerland’s Joana Heidrich/Anouk Verge-Depre, and Sweat/S. Ross will play the Czech Republic’s Barbora Hermannova/Marketa Slukova. Patterson/Brunner play Germany’s Markus Bockermann/Lorenz Schumann in the Round of 12, and Dalhausser/Lucena will face the winner of Canada/Russia in the quarterfinals.

Dalhausser and Lucena advance to the quarterfinals after earning the top spot in Pool A. They swept Austria’s Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst, Wednesday to close out pool play with a 2-0 record.

“They are playing great, I don’t know how we did it,” Lucena said of their victory over Austria. “We played pretty smooth, but we are tired. Fortunately, we’ve got the day off tomorrow. The bye gives us a little bit of advantage to the semifinals. It’s been a good year for us and we want to finish it on a high.”

Brunner and Patterson finished with a 1-1 record in Pool B after a three-set victory over Evandro Goncalves/Andre Loyola of Brazil, 21-18, 16-21, 15-13.

As for the U.S women, Sweat and S. Ross advanced out of Pool B after a loss to Germany’s Kira Ludwig and Laura Walkenhorst, 21-18, 21-12. They defeated the Brazilian team of Larissa Franca/Talita Antunes, 21-19, 24-22, to finish 1-1 in pool play.

“It was crazy out there,” Summer said of their match with Brazil. “Brooke and I just stayed intense, we knew we had the side out there in the end when it was close. It was a battle, Brazil is so good, and we can’t let up or go easy. It was back and forth the entire match, but we stayed steady until the end, when it mattered.”

For Fendrick and A. Ross, the duo defeated Switzerland’s Nina Betschart/Tanja Huberli, 21-16, 21-16 before falling to Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk/Eduarda Lisboa to finish 1-1 in Pool D.

Fendrick hopes they can adjust and bounce back heading into the elimination rounds, saying afterward that “it was definitely not our best match. They played well and made some adjustments that made us struggle a little bit. We figured out something on our setting that we’ll work to fix for tomorrow. We also need to bring more fire and more energy. We were a little bit flat.”

“It’s a great opportunity to get to play all the best teams in the world,” said A. Ross. “You can never count on anything, you got to bring your A game and you got to play well to beat all these teams.”