“Mini wins” lead Kelly Cheng, Sara Hughes to World Championship final
TLAXCALA, MEXICO — For the two months leading into this weekend’s Beach Volleyball World Championships, the language between Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes has centered on a single word: Breakthrough. When they partnered up last fall, reviving the most successful collegiate team in NCAA history, it wasn’t the Montreal Elite16 they marked on their calendars, nor was it Hamburg or Paris. The peak for 2023 was intended to be October 6-15, a World Championship on the line.
For nine days now, it has worked to perfection.
On Sunday, Cheng and Hughes will play for the title of World Champions after a thrilling semifinal win over Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth (18-21, 21-12, 15-13). It’s the first international final Hughes and Cheng have made in three months, dating back to the Gstaad Elite16, where they won silver. They didn’t plan on having a bit of a midseason malaise, of course, but such are the growing pains when adding new features to the offense — hello, jump-set — and variations to an already-staunch defense in the middle of the year.
“I think it’s the perfect time to have this lull of teams figuring out how to beat us and we have to figure out how to adapt and figure out how to get back on top,” Cheng said in the lead-up to World Champs. “I’m super thankful that it’s happening now and not at the beginning of next year or before the Olympics or at the Olympics, those moments of ‘What do we do?’ I’ve for sure felt that a few times this year, ‘Gosh we can’t get our footing, I don’t know what to do in this moment, I’ve tried so many different things, I’m beating my head against the door, it’s not working.’ It’s been a fun challenge to figure out as a team, study us, study the world, and keep pushing each other to get better. It’s been good for us.”
It’s an invaluable perspective to have, that zoomed-out lens. For a team that began with four consecutive wins, with a perfectionist streak that can drive them mad when they’re gritting through the growing pains required of evolving as players, to lose perspective of the bigger picture and focus only on a fifth here, a ninth there, an off-match or practice is the type of mental jiu jitsu that can crush a team’s spirit. But they’ve always had the bigger picture, Cheng and Hughes, even in the moments it can be easy to forget it.
“This run has been about celebrating the mini wins,” Cheng said. “When we do the right things, even if it doesn’t work, we’re building that foundation. That’s how we’re going to grow, that’s how we’re going to keep developing. Once that foundation solidifies that’s when we’ve been able to do some really fun, creative things which fires me up even more. I love all of that creative stuff, I love thinking outside of the box, I love challenging the way the game is played, but you’ve gotta have that solid foundation first. It’s a long journey, and really fighting to enjoy every bit of it.”
It is easy to enjoy now. On Sunday at 4 p.m. local, they will meet Brazilians Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa, the reigning World Champions, in the biggest match of their careers, a gold medal on the line that can only be rivaled by that of the Olympic Games.
“How are we going to sleep tonight?” Hughes said, the adrenaline of the semifinal win flowing. Sleep and recovery will be crucial, for anything less than the best will not be good enough.
They’re no strangers to Ana Patricia and Duda, having played five times this calendar year alone. Three of those matchups have come in the finals, with Cheng and Hughes winning the World Tour Finals and Tepic, and Ana Patricia and Duda taking Gstaad, as well as a bronze over Cheng and Hughes in Uberlandia.
But the Ana Patricia and Duda who has shown up in Mexico is a version of this pair the world hasn’t yet seen. They haven’t dropped a single set in seven matches and are riding a 19-match winning streak. Only Chen Xue and Xinyi Xia have managed to score more than 17. Even Australians Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho were summarily dismissed in the semifinals (21-17, 21-14) in spite of playing a fine match.
Fine just isn’t good enough against Ana Patricia and Duda. Not anymore.
“I feel like that’s been our language the last month: ‘Breakthrough is coming.’ Sara Hughes and I are now diving into things and I’m super excited about some of the things we’re working on,” Cheng said a month ago. “I feel a very similar tide: Breakthrough is coming.”
The question, then: Is the breakthrough here?
Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes celebrate making the World Championships finals/Volleyball World photo
Kristen Nuss, Taryn Kloth to play for World Championships bronze
The breakthrough has already been had for Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, there is no doubting that. They were the best team on the AVP this season, and at No. 2 in the World Rankings, they are currently the highest USA pair in the world (Cheng and Hughes are No. 3). Their semifinal loss to Cheng and Hughes was hardly an indictment, rather a tremendous showing of the might of the USA’s top two pairs.
But a sixth medal on the season — and third straight — particularly on the sport’s biggest stage, would elevate their precocious resumes into a different stratosphere. They will see another familiar foe in Australians Mariafe Artacho and Taliqua Clancy, whom they have played eight times since 2022. Nuss and Kloth lead the head to head, 5-3, and have won four straight.
Their bronze medal match is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. local.
Trevor Crabb, Theo Brunner seek long-awaited World Champs medal
Even if Sunday goes as poorly as possible for the USA women and both teams drop their respective matches, there is no doubting their legitimacy in the conversation as best in the world. The USA men have no such luxury. Not yet, anyway.
The last USA men’s pair to win a World Championship medal was Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers in 2009, when they claimed bronze in Stavanger — and when Swedish defender David Ahman, who will be playing in the finals, was just seven years old.
Several American pairs have come close. Theo Brunner and Nick Lucena took fourth in 2015, as did Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb in 2019, as did Brunner and Chaim Schalk in 2022.
On Sunday, after a quick loss to the Czech Republic’s Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner (21-15, 21-12), Brunner and Crabb will attempt to end that streak.
“This is how we played tonight,” Crabb wrote in a caption of a picture of a trashcan.
Suffice it to say, anything resembling garbage will not break the run of fourths.
At noon local, Crabb and Brunner will square off against Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Michal Bryl, who have navigated a brutal section of the bracket that required wins over the six seed (Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler), three (Andy Benesh and Miles Partain) and asked for another over the two in Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig. Almost had it, too, as Bryl had a swing for the match in the third set, only to send it into the net, giving Sweden a second life they wouldn’t waste, prevailing 18-16 in the third.
Brunner is 0-3 in his career against Losiak, though Crabb has never played him.
Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner celebrate a semifinal win at the World Championships/Volleyball World photo
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