For all the USA pairs in the pro beach volleyball tournament in the Czech Republic, just two got through Saturday and into Sunday’s semifinals of the Ostrava Elite16, one on each side.
Americans Terese Cannon and Olympian Sarah Sponcil, who were coming off a third-place finish two weeks ago at AVP Huntington Beach, have continued to surprise this week. Cannon, the former USC standout, and Sponcil, the UCLA great, not only got through the qualifier, the 16th seeded went 2-1 in pool play and Saturday knocked out seventh-seeded Swiss Olympian Anouk Verge-Depre and Joana Mader 21-16, 21-14.
And they’ll play another team that got through the qualifier, 13th-seeded Canadian Olympians Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes, who will try to medal in an international tournament for the first time as a pair. They knocked out eighth-seeded Americans Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss 21-19, 13-21, 15-12.
Sponcil and Cannon beat the Canadians in three in Huntington Beach. Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes have won an AVP together (Miami 2023) and finished second in another, but the best they’ve done on the Volleyball World tour is two fifth-place finishes.
In the other women’s semifinal, fifth-seeded Olympians Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli of Switzerland plays top-seeded Brazilian Olympians Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa.
The men’s semifinals pit 13th-seeded Americans Andy Benesh and Miles Partain playing seventh-seeded Qatari Olympic bronze-medalists Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan and top-seeded Olympic gold-medalists Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway against fourth-seeded Czech Olympians Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner.
Partain and Benesh, who have played seven matches, got through the qualifier and then made it out pool play despite going 1-2, losing their last match to Perusic and Schweiner. Saturday they stunned sixth-seeded Bartosz and Michal Bryl of Poland 21-19, 21-19, before advancing when second-seeded Swedes David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig had to forfeit because Hellvig had an apparent hand or wrist injury.
Olympian Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, who won AVP Huntington Beach — beating Julia Scoles and Betsi Flint in the final — were knocked out in the quarterfinals by Brunner and Huberli 21-18, 21-15. They tied for fifth and pocketed $8,000.
Kloth and Nuss also left with $8,000 for tying for fifth. Scoles and Flint tied for ninth after losing to Ana Patricia and Duda in the round of 16 and took home…
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