FIVB Marseille

[bcale]

Jen Kessy and April Ross will look to continue their domination of the beach volleyball circuit this weekend at the FIVB Tour Event in Marseille, France. Check out the medal rounds at www.universalsports.com!

[pogoball]

BTW, they're the only well-known American team entered. I assume that all the other american teams are at the AVP Long Beach event.

(there was another team I hadn't heard of that entered into qualifying, but lost in the first round of qualifying)

[beachvbfan]

Still unclear as to why most all teams skipped this event - tired of travelling?

[pogoball]

I have no inside knowledge, but I can think of a number of reasons with travel being clearly at the top.

The Long Beach AVP event is pretty close to where they played last week, so they don't have to fly (or pay for a flight). Additionally, the AVP event is an exclusive event by invite only, with only the top-16 teams from each gender attending -- so every team is probably guaranteed a pretty good payout. Further, a significant number of players live in California, so many probably can stay with friends and family for the week -- Misty May-Treanor obviously won't be passing up a Long Beach event.

Finally, the FIVB event is not a high-dollar event. It's not a part of their grand-slam series.

Here's some info on the AVP event:
www.avp.com/News-and-Media/2010/07/Long-Beach-Preview.aspx

[pogoball]

Anyway, Kessy & Ross won their first three rounds, but just lost to Antonelli/Talita, the #1 seeds from Brazil in the winner's bracket semifinals. They look to have a good draw as they'll play either the #12 or #14 seeds in the loser's bracket semifinals. If they win, they'll face the team of Keizer-Van Iersel (NED), a team that has been doing really well of late, in the tournament semifinals.

edit: I confused the Keizer-Van Iersel team with another team, but they did have a very good finish 2 weeks ago, beating Kessy/Ross in Norway to finish 5th.

[bigfan]

Jul 23, 2010 10:39:40 GMT -5 pogoball said:

Anyway, Kessy & Ross won their first three rounds, but just lost to Antonelli/Talita, the #1 seeds from Brazil in the winner's bracket semifinals. They look to have a good draw as they'll play either the #12 or #14 seeds in the loser's bracket................

When they won the AVP Hermosa on Sunday they left 2 hours AFTER THE MATCH to fly to France. Europe to California to Europe on succesive weekends to play has got to be very difficult on the body. BTW thanks for all the up-dates.

[pogoball]

Wow, Kessy/Ross lost to the 12th-seeded Austrian team of Schwaiger-Schwaiger to finish in 5th place. While the match was very close (losing 18-16 in the 3rd), this is a team that shouldn't push them.

Can't help but wonder about the travel effect on their performance.

[bcale]

Check out full match replays and highlights of the medal rounds of the FIVB Marseille event at www.universalsports.com!