As the sun continued to drench the sand, the world’s four best young women’s Beach Volleyball tandems from four different countries provided their own brand of hot performances Saturday at the Porto complex to advance to Sunday’s semifinals and medal matches at the 2010 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships, the ninth annual event for players under 19.
Pleasingly for us, one of these great teams is the Australian pairing of Karly Hynes and Taliqua Clancy! They have made the top 4 and play their semi final tonight against USA’s third-seeded Jane Croson/Summer Ross.
Hynes said of her pairing with Taliqua, “My regular partner is injured and Taliqua and I have been training for just over three weeks for the SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships. We have worked very hard and now we won our quarterfinal match, which is great, especially considering our short time together. Tomorrow we will do our best and if we win it would be fantastic, but we have already accomplished a lot by reaching the final four.”
You are an outside shot at seeing their match livestreamed here, but I am not certain how that will go.
Clancy/Hynes lead 8-4 early on, but Croson/Ross bring it back to 8-6 at the end change.
Consistent good ends from the US team give them 19-16.
Aussies come back well, but lose the first set in the end 22-20.
After 2 ends in the second set, its 8-6 to the US.
14-7 is the lead for the US now.
And thats 21-12 now to the US, they move onto the gold medal game 22-20 21-12. Leaving Taliqua and Karly to fight out for bronze.
In the bronze game our girls are 1 set in front and well on their way to being crowned the third best team in the world. Beating Rebecca and Juliana 21-13. They took the second set too, 21-11 giving them the Bronze Medal!!
