Tough start in Doha for USA at season-ending Beach Pro Tour Finals
The final event of the season, which is, in some ways — see: financial, with $150,000 to the winning team — the biggest of the 2023 year, could hardly have started worse for the USA.
The only victory in the five matches played by American teams on Wednesday in the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Finals in Doha, Qatar, came via forfeit, as Switzerland’s Tanja Huberli and Nina Brunner bowed out with a medical injury in their first match.
Other than that?
Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes fell to Germany’s Cinja Tillmann and Svenja Muller (17-21, 22-20, 15-13) in the morning match, allowing a 7-0 run in the third set to flip what once had been a commanding 8-4 lead.
Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, beneficiaries of the Swiss forfeit in the evening rounds, were stunned by Brazilian late entrants Taina Silva and Victoria Lopes (21-16, 21-18), who are coming off a bronze medal at last weekend’s Nuvali Challenge in the Philippines.
While Nuss and Kloth were able to take the afternoon off, Cheng and Hughes returned to the court and fell once more, to Canada’s Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes (23-21, 21-16).
To cap a fruitless day, Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, playing their first tournament since the World Championships in early October, fell in three to the Czech Republic’s Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner (26-24, 17-21, 15-12).
David Schweiner hits around Andy Benesh at the Beach Pro Tour Finals/Volleyball World photo
To be clear: There is no shame in any loss at the Beach Pro Tour Finals. The field is an assemblage of the top 10 teams in the world, based on the best eight finishes for each team in this calendar year. Benesh and Partain’s loss came at the hands of the World Champions. There is no hanging of the head in the aftermath of that.
But the road gets no easier from here.
Awaiting Benesh and Partain are Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Michal Bryl, bronze medalists at the World Championships; Qatar’s Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan, the 2021 Olympic bronze medalists; and Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Sam Cottafava, who upset Perusic and Schweiner and are coming off a silver medal at the Joao Pessoa Elite16.
Any win is a tremendous win.
No loss is a bad loss.
For Cheng and Hughes, too, the path forward is a difficult one.
Brandie Wilkerson blocks Sara Hughes at the Beach Pro Tour Finals/Volleyball World photo
Their only match on Thursday will be a rematch of the World Championship finals, against Brazil’s Ana Patricia and Duda, the current world No. 1 who claimed both of their matches on Wednesday and now top Pool A. On Friday, Cheng and Hughes will meet Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova, the Latvian duo who won the first Beach Pro Tour gold medals of their careers last weekend at the Nuvali Challenge.
Potentially boding well for Cheng and Hughes is that they’ve been here before. In January for the 2022 Beach Pro Tour Finals they also dropped the opening two matches of pool play. It worked out well enough, with five straight victories, gold medals around their necks, and a $150,000 check to take home. Finishing No. 1 in pool is desirable, of course, for it comes with a bye into the semifinals. But advancing is the top priority when it comes to the pool stages, and Cheng and Hughes are still more than capable.
For Nuss and Kloth, Switzerland’s medical withdrawal is helpful. They have three matches remaining: Thursday morning against Australians Mariafe Artacho and Taliqua Clancy in a rematch of the World Championship bronze-medal match, and later that evening against the Netherlands’ Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon in the first meeting between the two teams.
There are no Olympic points on the line, only prestige, and a mighty big check.
Kristen Nuss digs at the Beach Pro Tour Finals/Volleyball World photo
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