There was a Gif despatched by way of Twitter, of a bunch of schoolboys dancing on chairs and desks, with the custom-made caption: “American seaside volleyball followers proper now.”
Andy Benesh and Miles Partain had carried out it once more.
Seeded No. 1 within the Hamburg Elite16 unofficial Pool of Dying, Benesh and Partain started the match in Germany with a day matchup in opposition to Alex Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen. It hasn’t been the perfect season for the Dutch, the 2013 World Champions and 2016 Olympic bronze medalists. They entered the match seeded No. 10, their lowest because the Ostrava Open in 2021 — once they have been the 22 seed and would go on to win gold. It speaks to their requirements that this has been an off yr for the 2, contemplating that they’ve completed fifth in 4 of six tournaments in 2023.
Such is the worth of being elite.
Their first spherical matchup in opposition to Partain and Benesh marked the third straight match through which the 2 groups performed. Partain and Benesh had gained each prior conferences with out dropping a set: 21-11, 21-19 in Gstaad, 21-19, 21-19 in Montreal. To beat the No. 7 ranked group on the earth for a 3rd consecutive time is not any straightforward feat.
But as Partain and Benesh have carried out since debuting on the Seaside Professional Tour in Brazil in April, they made the troublesome look awfully straightforward. It was one other sweeping win for the younger Individuals, a 21-11, 21-18 victory through which Benesh tallied 5 blocks and the USA managed from begin to end.
Benesh and Partain weren’t the one cause for the dancing GIFs to be despatched throughout social media. Thursday was an ideal day for the USA, with all three groups — Partain and Benesh, Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth — combining to go 5-0.
Nuss and Kloth swept Germans Karla Borger and Sandra Ittlinger (23-21, 21-17) and topped European Champions Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli within the afternoon (11-21, 21-16, 15-12). Additionally invoking the Theo Theorem — coined by Theo Brunner, who seen a peculiar behavior of groups shedding after profitable a set 21-12 or worse — was Cheng and Hughes. They dropped their first set of the match 11-21 to Italians Marta Menegatti and Valentina Gottardi earlier than profitable the subsequent two, 21-16, 15-11.
Their second matchup, in opposition to Germany’s Cinja Tillman and Svenja Muller, didn’t require fairly as heroic of a comeback, although it was not for the faint of coronary heart. Muller and Tillman gained the primary, 21-15, and jumped out to a 9-5 lead within the second. Cheng and Hughes abruptly flipped the script, closing the set on a 15-6 run to power a 3rd, a set through which they continued their momentum to win, 15-10.
Each ladies’s groups are actually assured a spot within the weekend’s playoffs, no matter end result. Nuss and Kloth end pool in opposition to France’s Lezana Placette and Alexia Richard, whereas Cheng and Hughes shut pool with Thailand’s Worapeerachayakorn Kongphopsarutawadee and Taravadee Naraphornrapat. A win for each will assure them a bye into the quarterfinals.
All matches from the Hamburg Elite16 will be watched on Volleyball TV.
