On April 26, Andy Benesh and Miles Partain hosted Italians Sam Cottafava and Paolo Nicolai for an exhibition match at Wave Seashore, the San Diego-based facility that serves as their coaching middle. For the primary time of their careers, Benesh and Partain beat the Italians.
Benesh was, he mentioned later with an exhale, simply glad they didn’t get blown out once more.
Of their earlier two conferences with Cottafava and Nicolai, in Paris and Doha, each in 2023, they hadn’t scored greater than 17. However the win, relieving as it might have been in entrance of a bought out crowd of 500-plus, wouldn’t go down on any ledger. It was gentle, as exhibitions go. Nicolai hit a skyball. The gamers pandered to the group. Cottafava performed a set with Partain, the lefty defenders matching up with their right-handed blockers. Timeouts weren’t spent strategizing or respiration, however selecting out raffle tickets and thanking the group for supporting them.
It mattered, but it surely didn’t matter.
Saturday on the Ostrava Elite16 mattered.
Quarterfinals. Partain and Benesh vs. Nicolai and Cottafava.
There could be no skyballs hit on this one, no raffles drawn. A must-win match between two groups struggling to regain their formidable types of the earlier season, once they mixed for six medals and 13 top-five finishes.
Ever since a silver medal on the Montreal Elite16 final July capped off a scintillating stretch of three medals in as many weeks, Partain and Benesh hadn’t a lot as made a semifinal. They went winless on the season-ending Seashore Professional Tour Finals and in three tournaments this yr, they boasted only a single win over a group that didn’t come out of the qualifier or was wild-carded into the primary draw.
A major win, sure, over Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot in Brasilia, but it surely was simply that: a single win.
After which the wins piled up.
Important ones, too.
Within the remaining spherical of pool in Ostrava, they beat Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler for the primary time, a win that was adopted by one other pair of firsts over Qatar’s Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan, after which Nicolai and Cottafava.
In contrast to the exhibition at Wave, this win over the Italians mattered a great deal.
Out of the blue, USA’s slumping chief was slumping now not.
However the exclamation level was saved for the tip. A tough-fought semifinal loss to Boermans and de Groot (18-21, 21-23) put them in a bronze medal match with Anders Mol and Christian Sorum, the third-seeded Norwegians who have been getting back from a three-month break whereas Mol rested with a foot harm.
Benesh and Partain are one among simply two groups on the earth presently holding a profitable report towards Mol and Sorum. They’d executed the unthinkable final yr in Gstaad, beautiful them twice in a single match, then practically did it once more two weeks later, in Montreal, falling in a superb gold medal match.
The matchup promised compelling theater. Right here was a Norwegian group that for six years was as dominant as any seashore volleyball group in current reminiscence, but one whose grasp over the declare of world’s finest pair was turning into more and more tenuous, with Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig making an exponentially extra compelling case each week, particularly after including one other gold medal in Ostrava over Boermans and de Groot. And right here was an American group who had received three straight medals in a torrid honeymoon part but hadn’t landed any {hardware} in practically a yr.
Who would return to kind first?
The reply was given loud and clear, in a win that was outstanding in its ease: Benesh and Partain.
They swept Mol and Sorum, 21-15, 21-14, extending their report to 3-1 over the Norwegians. It’s a win, and a medal, that’s as priceless tangibly as it’s intangibly. The entry factors gained will maintain them immediately into Elite16 most important attracts for the foreseeable future. The $14,000 in prize cash is good, too.
However it’s the three straight wins over groups they hadn’t but beat, and one other over Mol and Sorum, and the intangible advantages of a regained confidence heading into an important summer time of their careers that can be way more priceless within the months to come back.
“I’d wish to say welcome again to the Seashore Volley Vikings,” Benesh mentioned, referencing the moniker given to Mol and Sorum and their Norwegian teammates, Hendrik Mol and Mathias Berntsen, “The seashore volleyball world missed you. They’re nice ambassadors for our sport and we’re fortunate to have them again.”
David Ahman, Jonatan Hellvig win third straight gold in Ostrava
Whereas Anders Mol and Christian Sorum have been taking three months off to relaxation the foot harm Mol suffered in coaching camp after March’s Doha Elite16, Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig have been blissful to grab the hole left on the prime of podiums. For the third straight match, Ahman and Hellvig received gold, beating Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot, 21-19, 21-18, extending their profitable streak to 10 consecutive matches.
Maybe extra outstanding, Ostrava marks 9 straight finals made by Sweden, extending again to final yr’s Ostrava Elite16, the place they completed fifth after forfeiting the quarterfinal when Hellvig injured his hand towards Andy Benesh and Miles Partain.
“In fact they performed tremendous good the final time we performed them,” Ahman mentioned of Boermans and de Groot, who whipped them within the finals of the Doha Elite16, 21-11, 21-10. “We wished a rematch and we acquired it. That feels wonderful.”
