How successful have the American women been halfway through the Elite 16 professional beach volleyball tournament in Newport Beach?
All four wild-card teams that won their way into the 16-team main draw were from the U.S., and all four survived the pool-round on Wednesday and Thursday to make it into Friday’s bracket stage.
Three other American teams finished 3-0 atop their four-team pools on Thursday, advancing straight to the quarterfinals on Friday afternoon. The four wild-card teams will play in the round of 12 beginning Friday morning.
Overall, eight of the nine U.S. teams in the main draw advanced.
The lone team that didn’t survive included 2024 U.S. Olympian Sara Hughes. She and partner Ally Batenhorst missed out after finishing in a three-way tie for second and losing a tiebreaker.
Kelly Cheng, who teamed with Hughes at the 2024 Olympics, and partner Molly Shaw finished their perfect pool-play run with a three-set win against the Brazilian duo of Thamela Coradello and Victoria Lopes, who came into the tournament ranked No. 1 in the world.
On an adjacent court, former USC standouts Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, ranked No. 2 in the world, finished with a perfect record in their pool after winning a three-set match against the world’s third-ranked 3 team, Carol Solberg and Rebecca Cavalcanti of Brazil.
Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher, former LSU standouts who represented the U.S. at the 2024 Olympics, also went 3-0 in pool play.
Jaden Whitmarsh and Devon Newberry won both their qualifying matches on Tuesday and then made it into the round of 12 by knocking off the experienced German pair of Louisa Lippmann and Linda Bock on Thursday morning.
Another U.S. team that came through the qualifier, Corinne Quiggle and Chloe Loreen, upset Solberg and Cavalcanti on Wednesday and then lost to Hughes and Batenhorst in their pool-play finale, causing a three-way tie for second that ultimately left Hughes and Batenhorst as the odd team out.
Two other former USC players, Hailey Harward and Molly Phillips, also advanced to the round of 12 after going 2-0 in the qualifying stage, as well as sisters Alaina and Morgan Chacon (Long Beach State).
Only four U.S. men’s teams were in the 16-team main draw, but all four posted 2-1 records in their pools to advance to Friday’s round of 12.
Miles Partain and Andy Benesh took on George Wanderley and Saymon Barbosa of Brazil in their morning pool-play match. The Brazilians were coming off a win last weekend at Challenge Veracruz in Mexico, but they were swept by the 2024 U.S. Olympians.
Partain and Benesh then brought their perfect record into their afternoon match against Nihls Ehlers and Clemens Wickler of Germany, the 2024 Olympic silver medalists, but the Americans lost in three sets.
Trevor and Taylor Crabb hadn’t played together in a top-tier international event in nine years, but the Redondo Beach brothers continued on. They lost their first match on Thursday to the Brazilian pair of Evandro Oliveira and Arthur Lanci, but returned to sweep Adrian Gavira and Alejandro Huerta of Spain in the afternoon.
The other 2024 U.S. Olympic men’s team, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, advanced to the Round of 12 with a comeback victory against Paul Burnett and Thomas Hodges of Australia.
Budinger and Evans got hammered 21-10 in the first set, but rallied back for a 22-20 win in the second set after trailing 8-5. The Americans then won the match with a 15-9 win in the third.
The fourth American team to advance was James Shaw and Chaim Schalk.