With the third and deciding set tied at 6 after a successful attack by Walsh Jennings, the 14th rally in the third set traveled over the net nine times.
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We received the answer here Tuesday night.
The American team is ranked third in the world, but Walsh Jennings had never lost a match in Olympic history, and entering Tuesday had only lost two sets across four Olympic tournaments.
Walsh Jennings and Ross have a chance to leave Rio with a good taste.
For the first time since the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Kerri Walsh-Jennings will not receive a gold medal in women’s beach volleyball.
Walsh Jennings misjudged the number of aces-the Brazilians only had a total of five in the match-but she believed her failure to set up her teammate was decisive. If it didn’t before, the whole country knows both of their names now. Neither team wanted to go home empty-handed.
It was a surreal sight watching the defending three-time gold medalist being picked on by her opponents. It was no consolation.
“I am a blessed woman”, Walsh Jennings said. “That’s not who we are”. It was then the Americans were down three, and appeared out of it.
“It still hasn’t sunk in what we’ve done, beating a player who has never lost at the Olympics”, said Bednarczuk, who won the World Championship title past year with Seixas as her partner.
Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross beat Australia’s Louise Bawden and Taliqua Clancy 21-14, 21-16 to advance to the semifinals.
As for Walsh Jennings’ future after these Olympics, she wouldn’t commit one way or the other after the semifinal match.
“I am so proud of my people, the Brazilian people”, Talita said.
“You can’t do anything without a pass. When we were introduced, I felt my kids, I felt my parents, I felt April’s family”. “We never got our mojo after that, and that’s why”. When the pair began playing together again, Ross upped her game to compensate for Walsh Jennings’ injuries.
“The roles have been reversed before; I could have done a lot more”. Spacing was a problem.
Serves were a problem. In 2015 the Brazilians won seven worldwide tournaments. You could see the confidence increasing with every block at net, every victor spiked to the sand. Agatha and Barbara targeted her throughout the match.
They fought back. As a small section of fans chanted “U-S-A”, Walsh Jennings and Ross ripped off several points in a row, erasing a three-point deficit and taking a three-point lead of their own. It dropped on the line, and the Brazilians had a 1-0 lead.
A largely Brazilian crowd ate it all up. She could have blamed her defeat on the ecstatic, not entirely polite, crowd that cheered on its home team of Agatha Bednarczuk and Baraba Seixas at Copacabana’s beach volleyball arena in a sport the country loves nearly as much as soccer. And with cafes and drinking establishments stretching up and down the Avenida Atlantica, the folks who poured into the bowl were partied-up and ready to yell. Ross and Walsh Jennings didn’t notice the noise or let it affect their game. But that’s what they said.
“It’s unbelievable what 24 hours can do, what we are capable of doing, what the human spirit, the American spirit, is capable of doing”, Walsh Jennings told reporters.
Volleyball is Brazil’s second most popular sport, behind soccer.
The Americans didn’t have an easy time against Brazil’s Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes, having to win in comeback fashion after dropping the opening set of the match.
That match will be played Wednesday night.
“It’s because I wasn’t passing the ball”, Walsh Jennings said. He made it about going out there and doing our best.
But for bronze, not gold.
Ross and Walsh Jennings didn’t hear the boos though.
Though it wasn’t the gold they set out for, the decorated Americans added to their medal collection with an impressive bronze victory.
“She turned into a beast, a beast of them all”, Walsh Jennings said of Ross.
As the crowd left the stadium chanting, “Bra-Sil!” Many an opponent has underestimated Jennings only to lose badly to her. But you could see the disappointment on her face.
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That’s how dynasties end.
