There was a Gif sent via Twitter, of a bunch of schoolboys dancing on chairs and desks, with the customized caption: “American beach volleyball fans right now.”
Andy Benesh and Miles Partain had done it again.
Seeded No. 1 in the Hamburg Elite16 unofficial Pool of Death, Benesh and Partain began the tournament in Germany with an afternoon matchup against Alex Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen. It hasn’t been the best season for the Dutch, the 2013 World Champions and 2016 Olympic bronze medalists. They entered the tournament seeded No. 10, their lowest since the Ostrava Open in 2021 — when they were the 22 seed and would go on to win gold. It speaks to their standards that this has been an off year for the two, considering that they’ve finished fifth in four of six tournaments in 2023.
Such is the price of being elite.
Their first round matchup against Partain and Benesh marked the third straight tournament in which the two teams played. Partain and Benesh had won both prior meetings without dropping a set: 21-11, 21-19 in Gstaad, 21-19, 21-19 in Montreal. To beat the No. 7 ranked team in the world for a third consecutive time is no easy feat.
Yet as Partain and Benesh have done since debuting on the Beach Pro Tour in Brazil in April, they made the difficult look awfully easy. It was another sweeping win for the young Americans, a 21-11, 21-18 victory in which Benesh tallied five blocks and the USA controlled from start to finish.
Alexander Brouwer hits through the block of Andy Benesh/ Volleyball World photo
Benesh and Partain were not the only reason for the dancing GIFs to be sent across social media. Thursday was a perfect day for the USA, with all three teams — 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 in the afternoon (11-21, 21-16, 15-12). Also invoking the Theo Theorem — coined by Theo Brunner, who noticed a peculiar habit of teams losing after winning a set 21-12 or worse — was Cheng and Hughes. They dropped their first set of the tournament 11-21 to Italians Marta Menegatti and Valentina Gottardi before winning the next two, 21-16, 15-11.
Their second matchup, against Germany’s Cinja Tillman and Svenja Muller, didn’t require quite as heroic of a comeback, though it was not for the faint of heart. Muller and Tillman won the first, 21-15, and jumped out to a 9-5 lead in the second. Cheng and Hughes abruptly flipped the script, closing the set on a 15-6 run to force a third, a set in which they continued their momentum to win, 15-10.
Both women’s teams are now assured a spot in the weekend’s playoffs, regardless of result. Nuss and Kloth finish pool against France’s Lezana Placette and Alexia Richard, while Cheng and Hughes close pool with Thailand’s Worapeerachayakorn Kongphopsarutawadee and Taravadee Naraphornrapat. A win for both will guarantee them a bye into the quarterfinals.
All matches from the Hamburg Elite16 can be watched on Volleyball TV.
Kelly Cheng hits against Italy’s Valentina Gottardi/Volleyball World photo
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