Kelly Cheng and Betsi Flint discussed it early in their partnership, and they’ve since discussed it often: “We want to dominate the World Tour.”
That’s the seven-word mission statement that Cheng relayed to reporters on Sunday afternoon, in the wake of a weekend that was more dominant than any team in the world. Six matches they played at the Volleyball World Hamburg Elite 16 this weekend in Germany, and six matches did they win.
They lost only a single set en route to a gold medal in as commanding a form as you’ll likely see all season on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour.
“Everybody’s good out here and everyone can have good weekends but we discussed a lot: We want to dominate the World Tour,” Cheng said after a 21-19, 21-18 championship-match victory over Switzerland’s Tanja Huberli and Nina Brunner. “That’s what we’re working towards and we have the capabilities. It’s just about being consistent and taking care of the opportunities we create for ourselves and having fun along the way.”
It’s always easier to have a bit of fun when you’re winning, and winning is all Cheng and Flint did this weekend in Hamburg. They won against teams they’d never won against, upsetting Brazil’s Talita Antunes and Rebecca Cavalcanti in the first match of the tournament. They won against Karla Borger and Julia Sude, the team who knocked them out of World Championships, in front of a raucous home crowd that packed the Rothenbaum 10,000-seat arena. They won against Raisa Schoon and Katja Stam, the Dutch pair who flew up the rankings this season, beginning in the qualifier and racing, briefly, to No. 1 in the world.
They won against everyone.
“I want to win a gold medal every tournament I go to so this is great,” Cheng said. “It’s also very nice getting to see all of our hard work pay off. We’ve been working on so many different things and when all the pieces get together it’s exciting. Now it’s just cleaning up a few things, the consistency, and trying to beat everyone on tour all the time.”
Consistency. That’s the word that came up, in various forms, four times in just a two-minute interview. They’ve proven, since the first tournament of the season, with a fourth-place finish in an Elite 16 in Rosarito, Mexico, that they can beat anyone in the world. They proved, in New Orleans, they can cruise through an AVP tournament…
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