Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth are claiming to have quite a bit of fun in France at the Paris Elite16 — and, with a 3-0 start, a bye into Saturday’s quarterfinals, and all of the hot chocolate Nuss can drink to celebrate, why shouldn’t they be? — but to watch Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes is to see the physical manifestation of fun on the court.
After a scintillating revival to their partnership last November, one that began with four consecutive wins, including the $150,000 payday at the World Tour Finals, Hughes and Cheng last stood atop a podium in March following another victory at the Tepic Elite16. For most, or anyone not named Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa, this is a far from worrisome timeframe: A few months without a gold medal is par for the Elite16 course. Only the aforementioned Brazilians have won multiple Elite gold medals this season.
New wrinkles, then, have been added to the Hughes-Cheng arsenal, one that was already replete with a number of them. Chief among those wrinkles? The jump-set, a skill currently in vogue on the men’s side but one used by only a single team on the women’s end: Cheng and Hughes.
Debuted at the AVP Chicago Gold Series on Labor Day weekend, Cheng’s occasional jump-sets earned Hughes the occasional open net. Like any new skill, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it even worked when Cheng thought it didn’t, when she hilariously gaffed a set that she thought would get called, grew visibly upset with herself — and then it wound up going for a point.
There have been no such gaffes in Paris. Cheng routinely broke out the jump-set during their 3-0 run through pool play, and Hughes’ hitting percentage on those sets is nearly 100 percent. Already a top-tier offensive player, Hughes is now getting open-net swings on a semi-regular basis. When the blocker didn’t fully bite on the jump-set, she was often late, having honored the threat of Cheng’s on-two attack, which then became an easier attack for Hughes on the third contact.
The result?
Two sweeping wins, over Germany’s Cinja Tillman and Svenja Muller (21-18, 21-19) and France’s Lezana Placette and Alexia Richard (21-19, 21-19) to claim the top spot in Pool D and earn a bye into the weekend’s quarterfinals (Their third match, scheduled against Germans Laura Ludwig and Louisa Lippmann, was won via forfeit; Ludwig and Lippmann recovered enough to beat France and break pool).
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