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Beach volleyball: May-Treanor, Walsh advance

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The blue skies had rolled in, the humidity had lifted and in the first few hours of an otherwise idyllic 30th birthday, Kerri Walsh faced something she didn’t necessarily ask for or expect:

Five set points.

Deficits are rare things for presumptive gold-medal favorites Walsh and Misty May-Treanor, who haven’t lost an international match in 66 tries and haven’t lost an international set in two months.

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So the U.S. duo took a deep breath, brushed off some sand and rallied for a 24-22 triumph over Belgium’s Liesbet Van Breedam and Liesbeth Mouha. Walsh and May-Treanor then polished off the straight-sets triumph with a 21-10 cakewalk, moving to 4-0 in Olympic play without losing a set.

‘Just side out and play really simple volleyball,’ said Walsh, when asked her mind-set when facing defeat. ‘The simpler your mind-set is at that time, the better it is.’

Fittingly, both U.S. players contributed on the point of the match. Tied, 22-22, after eliminating the fifth and final set point, May-Treanor somehow got a left forearm on a Van Breedam spike to keep the point alive, which Walsh finished by blocking another Van Breedam spike to make it 23-22.

‘We played a great team,’ Walsh said. ‘They came out aggressive and on fire and Misty and I came out with a little too slow of tempo. We didn’t convert on a couple of plays early and got frustrated. But we rallied.’

Walsh and May-Treanor, who have won 105 consecutive matches overall counting AVP Tour play, advance to face the winner of a match Friday night pitting Germany’s Okka Rau and Stephanie Pohl against Brazil’s Franca Larissa and Ana Paula Conelly.

-- K.C. Johnson

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