There was a phrase that when might have described Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes: boring.
They have been enjoyable to observe, after all, with their tempo units and choices and creativity. However so good have been they all through the 2023 Seaside Professional Tour season that there was little sense in paying a lot consideration to them within the early rounds of Elite16s. These pool play matches have been principally devoid of rigidity. There was no clenching of the fists or holding of the breath. The sensation one had when watching Cheng and Hughes was harking back to Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers or Misty Might-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings. Till the quarterfinals, there simply wasn’t a lot have to tune in.
That was the stratosphere wherein Cheng and Hughes had entered.
Pool play? Why trouble tuning in?
At no level of their practically two-year-long rekindled partnership had they did not advance into the playoff rounds. Of the 9 Elite16s they’d performed coming into the 2024 season, they’d gained pool in seven of them, incomes a bye straight into the quarterfinals. Even once they didn’t, they nonetheless made it to the quarterfinals or past in all however one.
Higher to control the groups who have been a bit extra unsteady, examine again in on Cheng and Hughes throughout the quarterfinals.
That was then.
That is now.
As it will probably go along with groups who vault straight to the highest of the world, as Cheng and Hughes did once they gained the primary 4 tournaments they performed collectively after reuniting as companions, Cheng and Hughes have been those with the proverbial goal on their backs. Possibly there was an adjustment from groups or maybe there was a slowdown that’s inevitable to even essentially the most dynastic of sports activities groups. Doubtless each.
Regardless of the case, there was and has been a change in 2024.
In Tepic, the second occasion of the season, they took second in pool and misplaced within the first spherical of playoffs to Brazilians Taina Silva and Victoria Lopes, a crew to which they’d by no means earlier than misplaced. Within the ensuing two Elites, in Brasilia and Espinho, they gained simply three matches and misplaced 5.
In Espinho, for the primary time of their partnership, they didn’t break pool.
Had been they unhealthy losses? No, not most of them, anyway. These have been elite groups in Elite tournaments that have been profitable principally shut matches over Cheng and Hughes, matches the world had merely grow to be accustomed to them profitable.
The sense of inevitability round Cheng and Hughes had waned.
Boring, they weren’t.
And so they actually weren’t boring this week on the Ostrava Elite16. Their first match of pool play, in opposition to Switzerland’s Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli, was a stunner, a 16-21, 11-21 thumping that portended nothing of the run to come back.
Did something change after that Thursday drubbing?
Cheng gained’t say. Possibly after Paris, she stated, she’d let the world know.
Regardless of the secret, one thing actually shifted. As a result of, in a single day it appeared, Cheng and Hughes resumed the shape that, final fall, led them to claiming the primary USA World Championship since 2009. They swept, in succession, China’s Xinyi Xia and Chen Xue, themselves coming off a gold medal final week in Stare Jablonki, Poland, and Germany’s Laura Ludwig and Louisa Lippmann, who punched their ticket to the Paris Olympic Video games. Within the first spherical of playoffs, they swept friends Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles. They have been out of the ninth-place rounds however removed from out of the woods, with No. 11 Germans Svenja Muller and Cinja Tillmann looming within the quarters, a crew that had simply crushed them two weeks prior, 21-12, 21-16.
Regarded prefer it was heading that method once more, too, solely even worse this time. A confounding 8-21 first-set was made solely extra puzzling by the scores that adopted: 21-18, 17-15 wins for Cheng and Hughes.
Boring?
Heavens, no.
They have been nothing if not essentially the most attention-grabbing crew within the match, a riddle made much more enigmatic when viewing their semifinal matchup: World No. 1 Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa. In seven conferences with Brazil’s high crew, Cheng and Hughes had gained three, together with essentially the most important of all of them, a 21-16, 24-22 sweep within the finals of the World Championships.
Like Cheng and Hughes are actually, Ana Patricia and Duda have lengthy been probably the most vexing groups on the planet.
“Tortured geniuses,” is the phrase Wealthy Lambourne usually makes use of when describing them on the published of Volleyball TV.
They’ve gained 10 medals of their final 15 tournaments, six of them gold. They’re a near-unanimous choice as the very best crew on the earth. But typically they’ll simply… lose a set 12-21… and discovering an evidence for it’s as simple as bottling smoke. They’ll go away you as awestruck as they’ll dumbfounded, usually in the identical match, a lot much less the identical match.
So it’s with Ana Patricia and Duda — so it’s with Cheng and Hughes now.
Cheng and Hughes would win that semifinal, 21-19, 21-18, knotting the collection at 4 wins apiece, conserving the very best rivalry on the Seaside Professional Tour as fascinating because the groups inside it.
However the job wasn’t achieved. Removed from it. A gathering with Canadians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson awaited within the finals. They’d been on a tour de pressure, these Canadians. Parlayed a win in Huntington Seaside, the place they knocked out Cheng and Hughes within the semifinals, into 5 straight sweeps in Ostrava, outscoring opponents by 43 factors in 10 units.
However then right here got here Cheng and Hughes, abruptly essentially the most attention-grabbing crew on the earth, a crew that had not been on as certain of a run as Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson, but the crew who was abruptly leaving little doubt in a 21-13 opening set win.
It portended the inevitable query: Was it sustainable?
No, due to course it wasn’t. Boring is now not allowed within the Cheng and Hughes camp.
A blowout simply wouldn’t do.
A sweep would elude Cheng and Hughes as they dropped the second set, 21-23, however the gold wouldn’t. They’d get well as soon as extra, as they’d this whole match, as they did after that opening match roundhouse they took from Switzerland and the 8-21 egg they laid in opposition to Germany. They’d go on to win 15-12 within the third, claiming their first gold medal of the season, and their first for the reason that World Championship final October.
What’s to come back later this 12 months, at their subsequent scheduled cease, the Paris Olympic Video games?
“Don’t depend us out,” Hughes stated.
No matter might come, it can actually be a present price watching.
“Dream come true:” Tina Graudina, Anastasija Samoilova win bronze
Tina Graudina needed to snigger when the swimming pools have been launched for the Ostrava Elite16. In her pool have been Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles, Kim Hildreth and Teegan Van Gunst, and Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa.
In fact it could be Ana Patricia and Duda.
Fifteen occasions they’ve performed the Brazilians of their quick careers, and twice already in 2024, in pool play of back-to-back Elite16s in Brasilia and Espinho.
At this level, it simply wouldn’t be proper if pool play didn’t function one other bout between the 2.
4 matches later, within the bronze medal match, who would Graudina and Samoilova meet once more however Ana Patricia and Duda.
Getting into the Ostrava Elite16, Graudina and Samoilova had crushed Brazil simply twice. Within the Czech Republic, they’d double that complete, first with a win in pool (15-21, 21-18, 15-11) then with one other for the bronze medal (21-18, 21-19).
“We’ve performed in opposition to them so many occasions and so they’re such crew and we’ve struggled to beat them,” Graudina stated. “To beat them in the identical match twice is a dream come true.”
