April's Beach Volleyball Log

Ross and Boss win in China

Top seeds April Ross/Jennifer Boss from the United States beat China's Huang Ying/Zhang Xi 21-17 and 23-21, winning back-to back FIVB beach volleyball tournament at China Sanya Open here on Sunday.

Elaine Youngs sets a FIVB beach volleyball record in Barcelona

With their 21-18 and 21-14 win in 40 minutes over fourth-seeded Talita Antunes and Renata Ribeiro, the second-seeded Branagh and Youngs successfully rebounded from an opening day defeat to a team from Cuba to win five-straight elimination matches to reach the semi-finals where the Americans defeated two teams from Brazil.

In addition to becoming only the second team to bounce back from a setback in the second-round of the loser's bracket to win a SWATCH FIVB World Tour gold medal, Branagh and Youngs shared the $28,000 first-place check along with improving their standing for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games where the Americans are currently ranked sixth with 4,120 points for their best eight international finishes since may 2007. Branagh also had seven of the top eight serves in the Hyundai Open Barcelona with her best SWATCH service being 82.1 km/h.

With no women's team ever winning a 32-team, double-elimination FIVB event after losing in the first round, Brazilians Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar accomplished the five-straight contender's bracket feat at the 1999 SWATCH FIVB World Championships in Marseille, France. Youngs placed third in the July event with Liz Masakayan, who is now coaching her former partner.

While Branagh was named the SWATCH most outstanding player for the inaugural Hyundai Open Barcelona, Youngs became the oldest women to win an "open" FIVB event. At 38 years, three months and 16 days, Youngs surpassed the previous mark set in July 1998 at a SWATCH FIVB World Tour stop in Portugal by compatriot Linda Hanley (38 years, one month, 25 days).

After losing 17-21, 21-12 and 15-7 to 15th-seeded Milagros Crespo and Imara Esteves Ribalta of Cuba on Wednesday, Branagh and Youngs won their last seven matches to net their first SWATCH FIVB World Tour title in their 15th international event together. While Branagh was capturing her first SWATCH title, Youngs was advancing to the top of a FIVB podium for the 12th time with her fourth different partner.

April Chapple is a freelance copywriter for volleyball products and promotions, columnist for USA Volleyball and the American Volleyball Coaches Association Coaching Volleyballmagazine and author of numerous online articles on playing and coaching volleyball. Author of the upcoming ebook "How to Stop Serving Like a Wimp" April's volleyball sites are Volleyball Voices, Volleyball Voyeur, Beijing Olympic Volleyball, Beijing Olympic Beach Volleyball, and Aprils Beach Volleyball Log. She can be reached at april@volleyballvoices.com

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Kerri Walsh has surgery on right shoulder

Kerri Walsh, half of No. 1 beach volleyball team, says surgery will make her better

USAToday.com reports

By Jimmy Golen, AP Sports Writer
The pain in Kerri Walsh's right shoulder didn't keep her from rising to the top of the world beach volleyball rankings. Now that she's had everything cleaned up, watch out.


"The only way it's going to affect me in '08 and Beijing is I'm going to be better," Walsh said Thursday in a telephone interview to promote the AVP's new winter indoor tour. "Last time I had my shoulder surgery, in college, it made me a better player. I needed to fix some of my mechanics, so that's what I'm really excited about."

The Olympic gold medalists in 2004, Walsh and partner Misty May-Treanor are the top-ranked women's team in the world, having qualified for the Beijing Games a year early by winning each of the eight international tournaments they entered in 2007.
To read more click AVP Beach volleyball

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2008 SWATCH FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar released

Lausanne, December 19, 2007 – The FIVB has released the official 2008 SWATCH FIVB World Tour calendar. The Beach Volleyball world season will start in Adelaide of Australia in March and will be closed by the city of Sanya, in China, with a double gender Open in November.

For the first time ever, the FIVB has scheduled a record number of Grand Slams, the top Women's and Men's tournament which sets its prize money and bonus pool to 600,000 US dollars each. 6 different countries (Austria, France, Germany, Norway, Russia and Switzerland) will host the FIVB Beach Volleyball main events. Open and Grand Slam have been assigned to 24 cities overall, covering North and South America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. After a long bidding process, many venues are new entries in the Beach Volleyball season: cities like Osaka, Adelaide, Prague, Barcelona, Dubai and Sanya will host for the first time the Beach Volleyball world stars.

Stressing the success of the SWATCH FIVB World Tour, the total prize money combined with the bonus pools reaches for 2008 the amazing amount of 8,500,000 US dollars. This quantity will be split exactly in two parts: the same amount for Men and Women, giving an equal opportunity to each gender. Men and Women will also have the same number of tournaments (20) in their season schedule.

The first tournaments of the year will all be part of the Beach Volleyball Olympic Qualification process, which already covers all the 2007 season. The players will have at least 12 other tournaments (13 for Men) to choose the 8 best results which can guarantee the ticket to Beijing. The last tournament to assign Olympic points to the players will be played in Marseille from 14 to 20 July 2008. Then on Saturday 26 July, in Gstaad, the official Olympic drawing of lots will be staged to determine the Pools composition and the first days of the match-up of the Beach Volleyball tournaments in Beijing. The provisional Olympic Ranking is published on the FIVB website, Beach Volleyball page.

At this stage the FIVB is working diligently with its organizers in Canada and UAE to confirm the double genders events tentatively scheduled respectively on 8-13 July and 5-11 October 2008. The city of Mallorca through a promoter has shown a strong interest to stage a Men's Open in September but this event needs to be confirmed in the forthcoming days. The 2008 event in Finland has been postponed to 2009 due to the difficulties in scheduling it in August.

Two other great appointments of the 2008 season will be with the future generations of the sport. For the very first time, Great Britain and the Netherlands will host a major FIVB Beach Volleyball event. The city of Brighton is going to host the eighth edition of the SWATCH-FIVB Junior (Under 21) World Championships on 3-7 September 2008, while The Hague will welcome the seventh edition of the SWATCH-FIVB Youth (Under 19) World Championships from July 30 to August 3, 2008.

Asia will host the following events:

Women:

March 24-29 in Adelaide of Australia (Adelaide, Australia Open)

April 29- May 4 in Shanghai of China (China Shanghai Jinshan Open)

May 13 –18 in Seoul of Korea (Seoul Open)

May 20-25 in Osaka of Japan (Osaka Open)

*October 5-10 in Dubai, UAE (Dubai Open, to be confirmed by mid-January)

November 4-9 in Phuket, Thailand (Phuket Thailand Open)

November 11-16 in Sanya of China (Sanya Open)

Men:

March 25-30 in Adelaide of Australia (Adelaide, Australia Open)

April 28- May 3 in Shanghai of China (China Shanghai Jinshan Open)

*October 6-11 in Dubai, UAE (Dubai Open, to be confirmed by mid-January)

Oct 27- Nov 1 Manama of Bahrain (Manama Open)

November 10-15 in Sanya of China (Sanya Open)

(The prize money in all these events are US$100,000 and bonus pool are

US$75,000)

For the entire 2008 FIVB Calendar of Tournaments click FIVB Volleyball to read more calendar

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