Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 10, 2016 - After pairs from Australia and Spain posted seed-break-through wins to capture Rio 2016 Olympic women’s Beach Volleyball groups, Americans April Ross and Kerri Walsh Jennings protected their seeding by securing the Pool C title by defeating Isabelle Forrer and Anouk Verge-Depre of Switzerland in three sets.
With their 2-1 (21-13, 22-24, 15-12) win in 65 minutes over the Swiss pair to secure their three match win of the competition, Ross and Walsh Jennings maintained their third-seeding when the 16-team elimination bracket is played Friday and Saturday. The win was the Americans fourth international victory over Forrer and Verge-Depre in as many matches.
Ross and Walsh Jennings controlled the first set throughout by jumping out to 4-0 and 8-1 leads. The second set featured 13 ties and three lead changes with two hitting errors by the Americans on the final two serves by the Swiss giving Forrer and Verge-Depre the match tie.
The third and deciding set had eight more ties and five lead changes with a medical time out for Forrer with the Americans leading 10-9. After the break, the Swiss tied the set at 10-10 and Ross then scored two-straight points on an attack and service winner to give the Americans the lead for good at 12-10. The Swiss trailed 13-12 when Ross had another successful attack and the Americans won the match on a fault by Verge-Depre
Earlier Wednesday, the teams of Elsa Baquerizo/Liliana Fernandez of Spain (Pool B) and Louise Bawden/Taliqua Clancy of Australia (Pool F) defeated the top-ranked pairs in the groups from Brazil and The Netherlands, respectively, to replace their defeated rivals in the seeding order.
Elsa and Liliana stunned Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas of Brazil 2-0 (21-17, 22-20) in 44 minutes to become the second-seeded team in elimination bracket while Bawden and Clancy’s 2-1 (27-25, 18-21, 16-14) win in 60 minutes over Madelein Meppelink and Marleen Van Iersel of the Netherlands earned the Aussies the No. 6 seed.
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