Kerri Walsh Jennings Advances To Fourth Olympic Volleyball Semifinal With Win

The crowd at the Copacabana beach volleyball venue sang “Happy Birthday”.

Walsh Jennings and Ross beat Australia’s Taliqua Clancy and Louise Bawden to advance to the women’s beach volleyball semifinals.

True, the Italians led in each set, but the Americans rallied to put them away 21-10, 21-16 in just 35 minutes. Agatha and Barbara posted a quarter-final win late Sunday evening over Ekaterina Birlova and Evgeniya Ukolova of Russian Federation 2-0 (23-21, 21-16) in 46 minutes. Ross won silver in London, losing to Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor in the final. It was 9-9 in the first-to-15 third set when Brazil scored three points in a row and then held on for the win. “The audience was insane”.

“I want to build up my presence in our sport”, she said during an interview.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Durant, Green, Butler and Jordan enjoying themselves as Team USA fans in Rio, either. They won all their matches in the group stage, but this is the knockout stage where one bad match will send you home empty handed, and the Italian team of Marta Menegatti and Laura Giombini did everything they could to make it hard.

“They had a fight and had to fight off a lot of set points”. While they rock a standard pair of briefs and top, Team U.S.A. also has been known to accessorize their look, really making the uniform their own as they layer thin bracelets and necklaces. Larissa and Talita will face German duo Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst on the other side of the bracket. Last week, they made their way to the aquatic center to watch Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky both win gold. ‘They play at a high level and every time I caught a glimpse they seemed so into it and when we won they seemed so proud’.

Four years isn’t all that long for a beach volleyball partnership, but it’s an eternity compared to the Italians. “We got that opportunity”, Pavan said.

At the beginning of the tournament, it felt like all the matches were just a precursor to the inevitable showdown between the Brazilians and the Americans.