American duo advance to quarters in beach volleyball
Published 11:04 am Saturday, August 16, 2008
BEIJING — Americans Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal advanced to the quarterfinals in Olympic beach volleyball Saturday night with a 26-24, 21-17 victory over Spain, keeping the fifth-seeded U.S. team on track for an all-American final.
They defeated Pablo Herrera Allepuz and Raul Mesa 26-24, 21-17 to earn a matchup with Brazilians Ricardo and Emanuel, who survived five set points to beat Russians Dmitri Barsouk and Igor Kolodinsky 18-21, 25-23, 15-12.
Rosenthal had nine digs on defense — as many as the other three players on the court combined.
“It was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen out of my partner. He absolutely carried me,” Gibb said. “He showed what he could do out there today, on the biggest stage of all.”
Earlier Saturday, No. 2 seeds Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers overcame a 6-0 deficit in the third set to beat Switzerland 21-16, 21-23, 15-13.
They’ll meet the German team of David Klemperer and Eric Koreng, who knocked hosts Wu Penggen and Xu Linyin out of the tournament 21-15, 21-18.
Dalhausser and Rogers took an easy first set before giving away the second with mental mistakes and mis-hits. Martin Laciga and Jan Schnider scored the first six points in the third for a lead that even the Americans thought might be insurmountable.
“At no point did I quit,” said Rogers, who once won a match on the domestic pro tour after trailing 13-7 in the third. “But I was thinking it would be a pretty gnarly comeback — if we make the comeback.”
The reigning world champions, heavy favorites to win the gold medal in their Olympic debuts, got a sideout, then Rogers made a nice scoop save to make it 6-2. The Swiss called timeout, but it didn’t change the momentum and soon it was 6-5, and 7-7.
“It’s still unclear. I don’t even know what happened,” Laciga said. “You don’t expect to lead 6-0 and win easily against a team like this. But they were not stopping to believe. (At) 6-0, they were still comfortable. I’m hoping they would get a little bit desperate, but they continue playing like nothing happened.”
It was 10-10 when the Americans scored three straight points and held on to win for the third straight time since opening the Olympics by losing to the No. 23 team from Latvia in pool play.
Also Saturday, Austrian Alexander Horst made a full-court save by kicking the ball back over his body and over the net one point before he and Florian Gosch beat Latvians Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs 21-17, 21-18.
“If it’s not possible to get it any other way,” Horst said, shrugging his shoulders as if it were routine.
The Latvians, the youngest team in the tournament and the No. 23 seed in a 24-team field, beat Rogers and Dalhausser in their opener, snapping their 21-game international win streak. They finished in a tie for ninth.
“Of course, I will remember this match,” Samoilovs said. “It was our first of the Olympics.”
In other matches Saturday, Brazil’s Marcio and Fabio beat Kentaro Asahi and Katsuhiro Shiratori of Japan 23-21, 21-15. Renato Gomes and Jorge Terceiro of Georgia beat Austrians Clemens Doppler and Peter Gartmayer 19-21, 21-16, 15-13, and Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil of the Netherlands beat Andrew Schacht and Joshua Slack 21-16, 21-14.
