Kelly Cheng, Sara Hughes thrive in Paris Elite16 with new-look offense
Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth are claiming to have quite a bit of fun in France at the Paris Elite16 — and, with a 3-0 start, a bye into Saturday’s quarterfinals, and all of the hot chocolate Nuss can drink to celebrate, why shouldn’t they be? — but to watch Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes is to see the physical manifestation of fun on the court.
After a scintillating revival to their partnership last November, one that began with four consecutive wins, including the $150,000 payday at the World Tour Finals, Hughes and Cheng last stood atop a podium in March following another victory at the Tepic Elite16. For most, or anyone not named Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa, this is a far from worrisome timeframe: A few months without a gold medal is par for the Elite16 course. Only the aforementioned Brazilians have won multiple Elite gold medals this season.
New wrinkles, then, have been added to the Hughes-Cheng arsenal, one that was already replete with a number of them. Chief among those wrinkles? The jump-set, a skill currently in vogue on the men’s side but one used by only a single team on the women’s end: Cheng and Hughes.
Debuted at the AVP Chicago Gold Series on Labor Day weekend, Cheng’s occasional jump-sets earned Hughes the occasional open net. Like any new skill, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it even worked when Cheng thought it didn’t, when she hilariously gaffed a set that she thought would get called, grew visibly upset with herself — and then it wound up going for a point.
There have been no such gaffes in Paris. Cheng routinely broke out the jump-set during their 3-0 run through pool play, and Hughes’ hitting percentage on those sets is nearly 100 percent. Already a top-tier offensive player, Hughes is now getting open-net swings on a semi-regular basis. When the blocker didn’t fully bite on the jump-set, she was often late, having honored the threat of Cheng’s on-two attack, which then became an easier attack for Hughes on the third contact.
The result?
Two sweeping wins, over Germany’s Cinja Tillman and Svenja Muller (21-18, 21-19) and France’s Lezana Placette and Alexia Richard (21-19, 21-19) to claim the top spot in Pool D and earn a bye into the weekend’s quarterfinals (Their third match, scheduled against Germans Laura Ludwig and Louisa Lippmann, was won via forfeit; Ludwig and Lippmann recovered enough to beat France and break pool).
“We are on a mission this tournament to establish what we have been working on in practice for the last three weeks,” Hughes said. “Sometimes it’s working great, other times not so much, but we are sticking with it and having faith in our system. Really happy with how we are playing as a team and love our fight.”
Sara Hughes hits at the Paris Elite16/Volleyball World photo
A pool-play chalk walk at the Paris Elite16
Pool play went fittingly enough across the board in Paris: The top four ranked teams in the Olympic standings — Barbara Seixas and Carol Salgado, Ana Patricia and Duda, Nuss and Kloth, Cheng and Hughes — all finished pool play undefeated. Only Ana Patricia and Duda dropped a set, to Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles.
Flint and Scoles, despite losing two pool play matches, are moving on to Saturday’s playoffs as well with a victory over Finland’s Taru Lahti and Niina Ahtiainen on Thursday. Their match against Switzerland’s Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli on Friday morning was mostly a lame duck, a battle for second and third in pool, where both teams would have begun in the ninth-place rounds of playoffs no matter how the match went, given the undefeated run by Brazil.
The only American team eliminated from pool play was the new duo of Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, who played three admirable main draw matches after qualifying on Wednesday but lost all three. Twice, they went the full three sets, to Australia’s Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho and Italy’s Valentina Gottardi and Marta Menegatti, and they nearly did so again, losing 18-21, 20-22 to Nuss and Kloth on Friday morning.
Andy Benesh and Miles Partain nearly went that route as well. After losing both matches on Thursday, Benesh and Partain required a victory over Australians Zac Schubert and Thomas Hodges. Victory was had — barely. A 21-19, 22-24, 15-11 win pushed Benesh and Partain into the weekend’s playoffs.
Scoles and Flint are the first Americans in action on Saturday, against Gottardi and Menegatti. It is the first meeting between the two teams, and it won’t be the last, as they are in the same pool for next week’s World Championships. Should they win, they will meet Barbara and Carol in the quarterfinals.
Hughes and Cheng are next, awaiting the winner of Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho and Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon, the gold medalists of last year’s Paris Elite16. Nuss and Kloth will play the winner of Huberli and Brunner and Ludwig and Lippmann.
Partain and Benesh find themselves in a loaded portion of the bracket. They’ll play Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Sam Cottafava in the first round; the winner will feed into the Czech Republic’s Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner, who finished pool play undefeated.
Miles Partain hits against Thomas Hodges at the Paris Elite16/Volleyball World photo
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