After a week of rest following the World Championships in Rome, American tandems May-Treanor/Walsh and Kessy/Ross started off with two wins on Wednesday at the FIVB World Tour Grand Slam in Stavanger, Norway.
Seeded second, Misty May-Treanor/Kerri Walsh picked up pool play victories over No. 31 Madelein Meppelink/Marloes Wesselink of The Netherlands (21-18, 21-14) and No. 18 Jana Kohler/Julia Sude of Germany (21-17, 21-16).
May-Treanor and Walsh, who took silver at the world championships, will play No. 15 Simone Kuhn/Nadine Zumkehr of Switzerland on Thursday in their last group match. The duos have faced each other only once before – earlier this month at the Beijing Grand Slam, where the Americans won a tight first set (29-27) before cruising in the second (21-12) and going on to win the tournament.
Jen Kessy/April Ross, the No. 3 seed in Stavanger, also picked up a pair of straight-sets wins, defeating No. 30 Karolina Sowala/Katarzyna Urban of Poland (21-15, 21-15) and No. 19 Vassiliki Arvaniti/Maria Tsiartsiani of Greece (21-17, 21-19).
On Thursday, Kessy and Ross will face No. 14 Lenka Hajeckova/Hana Klapalova of the Czech Republic, a team that placed fourth at Worlds. These tandems were also in the same group in Rome, with the Americans coming out on top in their match (22-24, 21-7, 15-12).
The other U.S. women’s team in the Stavanger main draw, No. 9 Brooke Hanson /Lauren Fendrick, went 1-1 on Wednesday. They dropped their first match to 25th-seeded Italians Daniela Gioria/Giulia Momoli (17-21, 14-21) before bouncing back to defeat 24th-seeded Finnish sisters Emilia/Erika Nystrom (21-11, 21-7). On Thursday the Americans will take on home-crowd favorites, ninth-seeded veterans Kathrine Maaseide/Ingrid Torlen of Norway.
Brazilians Juliana Silva/Larissa Franca, the top seed and reigning world champions, also dropped a pool match Wednesday. They won their opener against No. 32 Siri Bjorkesett/Vilde Solvoll of Norway (21-7, 21-9) before falling to 17th-seeded Germans Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler (21-19, 16-21, 10-15).
After the women finish pool play, the eight group winners advance directly to the second round of single-elimination play, which will be played Friday. All the second- and third-placed teams from each pool will be drawn into the first round of single-elimination Thursday, with winners of those matchups taking on the group winners. The women’s semifinals and medal matches will take place Saturday.
Source: universalsports.com
