TLAXCALA, MEXICO — For the two months leading into this weekend’s Beach Volleyball World Championships, the language between Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes has centered on a single word: Breakthrough. When they partnered up last fall, reviving the most successful collegiate team in NCAA history, it wasn’t the Montreal Elite16 they marked on their calendars, nor was it Hamburg or Paris. The peak for 2023 was intended to be October 6-15, a World Championship on the line.
For nine days now, it has worked to perfection.
On Sunday, Cheng and Hughes will play for the title of World Champions after a thrilling semifinal win over Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth (18-21, 21-12, 15-13). It’s the first international final Hughes and Cheng have made in three months, dating back to the Gstaad Elite16, where they won silver. They didn’t plan on having a bit of a midseason malaise, of course, but such are the growing pains when adding new features to the offense — hello, jump-set — and variations to an already-staunch defense in the middle of the year.
“I think it’s the perfect time to have this lull of teams figuring out how to beat us and we have to figure out how to adapt and figure out how to get back on top,” Cheng said in the lead-up to World Champs. “I’m super thankful that it’s happening now and not at the beginning of next year or before the Olympics or at the Olympics, those moments of ‘What do we do?’ I’ve for sure felt that a few times this year, ‘Gosh we can’t get our footing, I don’t know what to do in this moment, I’ve tried so many different things, I’m beating my head against the door, it’s not working.’ It’s been a fun challenge to figure out as a team, study us, study the world, and keep pushing each other to get better. It’s been good for us.”
It’s an invaluable perspective to have, that zoomed-out lens. For a team that began with four consecutive wins, with a perfectionist streak that can drive them mad when they’re gritting through the growing pains required of evolving as players, to lose perspective of the bigger picture and focus only on a fifth here, a ninth there, an off-match or practice is the type of mental jiu jitsu that can crush a team’s spirit. But they’ve always had the bigger picture, Cheng and Hughes, even in the moments it can be easy to forget it.
“This run has been about celebrating the mini wins,” Cheng said. “When we do the right things, even…
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