Sink or swim: Pool chances for each USA team at Beach Volleyball World Championships

TLAXCALA, MEXICO — Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes didn’t need to be in Tlaxcala on Sunday afternoon. Didn’t need to take the 30-minute Uber from Apizaco, where their pool — Pool C — is competing. But a change of scenery is nice. So there they were, enjoying what is, to them, a day off, meaning some fun games of no jump, a little pass and set. Messing around with some jump-sets and shoot sets and jump-shoots. Lots of laughs. Smiles.

Morale, it was not difficult to see, is high in the Cheng-Hughes camp.

Make no mistake, however, the laid-back nature of their field trip to Tlaxcala was earned, not given.

They opened pool play of the Beach Volleyball World Championships with a pair of beatings, first to Mexico’s Esperanza Albarran and Yeray Vidaurrazaga (21-4, 21-10), then to Germans Karla Borger and Sandra Ittlinger (21-17, 21-12). Regardless of what happens during Monday’s 9 p.m. nightcap against Brazil’s Agatha and Rebecca, they are almost assured the top spot in pool, and guaranteed, at the minimum, the second seed.

The difference between coming out first or second is minimal, as the one and the two from every pool begin playoffs in the same position, seeded directly into Wednesday’s round of 32 single-elimination playoffs.

Not that you should inform Cheng of this, or her position as the more than likely No. 1 seed in their pool.

“To me, if we lose, my mindset is there’s still a chance we still might not break pool,” she said after the 45-minute practice in Tlaxcala.

So no, they will not be taking Agatha and Rebecca lightly, or using it as practice reps or a fine-tuning match for the critical playoff rounds to come. They will be looking to pour it on as they did in matches one and two.

“We’ve really just been taking it one match at a time,” Hughes added.

Their position is an enviable one, and one that is matched by fellow Americans Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, whose pool is based in Humantla, and Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles, based in Tlaxcala. All three teams have won without dropping a set. Only one team has managed to score 19 against the triumvirate of Americans. All three are guaranteed to move on, regardless of what happens when Nuss and Kloth play Brazil’s Andressa and Victoria on Monday afternoon and when Flint and Scoles meet Italians Marta Menegatti and Valentina Gottardi at 3:30.

While the women still have one match remaining, three of the four USA men’s teams are finished pool play. Miles Partain and Andy Benesh emerged unscathed, an undefeated performance capped by a 16-21, 21-15, 15-10 victory over France’s Arnaud Gauthier-Rat and Youssef Krou, in which Benesh piled up 10 blocks.

Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner also claimed the top spot in their pool, albeit in the most unlikely of fashions. They entered their Sunday night match against George Wanderley and Andre Loyola thinking a win might have them finish second, behind Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov and Eduard Reznik. A loss and, worst come to worst, they’d finish third, still breaking pool.

Wrong.

Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, on their last gasp, required a blowout win over Popov and Ukraine. A blowout is what they got, a 21-15, 21-11 shellacking that suddenly, drastically, shifted the stakes of the match on center court between the USA and Brazil, where the winner now won the pool and the loser would be sent home packing.

Crabb and Brunner won, 19-21, 21-19, 15-12, surviving and advancing in one of the wildest manners possible. 

While five USA teams are now in the comfy and cozy position of guaranteed breaking pool, the same cannot be said for the remaining three.

Below is what every team remaining needs to do in order to break pool at the Beach Volleyball World Championships.

Hailey Harward, left, and Alix Klineman in Tlaxcala/Volleyball World photo

Alix Klineman, Hailey Harward in a win-and-in against China

Alix Klineman and Hailey Harward had the chance to clinch a berth into the playoffs Sunday. An upset win over Cinja Tillman and Svenja Muller, the 2022 World Championship bronze medalists, on Saturday set them up with a win-and-in match against Brazil’s Taina Silva and Victoria Lopes.

“We’ve only had one other match before this match,” a beaming Harward said after their 25-23, 21-14 upset over Germany. “Trying to go in with no expectations and trying to believe.”

Silva and Lopes, perhaps fueled by an added sense of urgency after getting upset by China’s Fan Wang and Jie Dong on Saturday, swept Klineman and Harward, 21-17, 21-17  early Sunday afternoon. At the same time, on center court, Tillman and Muller swept Wang and Dong, 21-13, 21-16, leaving all four Pool K teams 1-1.

It puts Klineman and Harward in another win-and-in scenario, where a victory against China at 9 p.m. Monday not only guarantees a break from pool, but one of the top two seeds as well, where they will begin playoffs in the round of 32. If they lose it will come down to point differential between them and the loser of Germany vs. Brazil. Given the massive point spread in Germany’s win over China, should Klineman and Harward lose, it would be beneficial if Germany then handles Brazil by a wide margin, as ties are broken via point differential.

Terese Cannon, Megan Kraft likely moving on

Like Klineman and Harward, Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft stand 1-1 after a loss to Spain’s TCU pair of Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno (28-26, 21-15) on Saturday and a smooth win over Mexico’s Ivanna Rivera and Susana Torres (21-11, 22-20) on Sunday. A win Monday against China’s Xinyi Xia and Chen Xue will guarantee them at least the No. 2  seed, though they would likely lose the tiebreak for the top spot with China after their sweep over Mexico (21-12, 21-9) and a forfeit win against Moreno and Alvarez after Moreno was injured.

A win is the simplest solution for Cannon and Kraft to break pool, though given Mexico’s poor point differential, and the questionable health of Spain, they are essentially a sure bet to break pool. It is mostly a matter of what position and seed they will take when they do.

Tri Bourne, Chaim Schalk in a win-and-in vs. Germany

Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk are the final USA men’s team with a match remaining in pool play, and it may very well require their best performance of the season to get out. After back-to-back losses to Poland’s Piotr Kantor and Jakub Zdybek (21-19, 21-19) and Chile’s Noe Aravena and Vicente Droguett (21-17, 24-22) Bourne and Schalk now must upset top-seeded Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler, the current world No. 7 who has been a tour de force this weekend. In two matches in Mexico, Wickler and Ehlers haven’t allowed more than 14 points in a set. No pair in the 48-team field has a bigger point differential than the Germans.

To top it all, Bourne is 0-6 in his career against Wickler, although Schalk is 2-1, and they went to three in a previous matchup at the Tepic Elite16, which Germany won (28-30, 21-17, 15-5).

There is one element that maybe, kinda, sorta, potentially bodes well for Bourne and Schalk, and that is the blowouts that Germany has dealt to both Poland and Chile (21-12, 21-14; 21-7, 21-13, respectively). The poor point differential for Poland and Chile makes it a virtual win-and-in scenario for Bourne and Schalk, barring something wildly unusual from the Poland-Chile match, though this has been a tournament of very unusual results, so such an event cannot be ruled out.

Germany is all but guaranteed to take the top spot in pool, making their 9 a.m. bout with Bourne and Schalk essentially a practice match. Whereas nothing is on the line for Ehlers and Wickler, everything is on the line for Bourne and Schalk, the dichotomy of which could flip the tenor of the USA’s ugly week thus far, as it did in the Ukraine vs. Budinger-Evans match.

Crazier things have happened.

It’s World Champs, after all.

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