USA's May/Walsh rout Brazilians in Country vs. Country Challenge

by Paul Soriano USA Volleyball Manager, Public Relations & Publications

In their first match of the 2004 season, Misty May and Kerri Walsh of the USA needed just 41 minutes to defeat Brazil's Queen of the Beach Vanilda dos Santos Leao and her partner Gerusa da Costa Ferreira and capture the Country vs. Country Challenge title on Sunday at Ipanema Beach, Brazil.

May and Walsh, who won the world championship in their final match together last season (also in Brazil), made easy work of Val and Gerusa and emerged with a 21-7, 21-16 victory in straight sets.

Following Dain Blanton and Jeff Nygaard's 22-20, 20-22, 15-13 win over the Brazilian world champion pair of Ricardo and Emanuel on Feb. 15, May and Walsh needed the win to seal the Country vs. Country series being contested between two of the best beach volleyball nations.

In the end, the height advantage and overall skill of the women's world champions was too much for the Brazilians, who were playing together for the first time.

"They didn't really start to play until late in the first set," said Walsh, who attributed the easy first-set win to a nervous start by the Brazilians. "In the second set, they played a lot better."

"Val was very strong on the attack while we put a lot of pressure on Gerusa," May added. "The two of them played well and with the experience they will get better."

Brazil tried to put pressure on Walsh but she was up to the task. Several times her potent attack "nailed" the Brazilian block, which even caused the pro-Brazilian crowd of 1,500 to cheer and applaud the talented Americans.

A week after her first title in beach volleyball-the 2004 Queen of the Beach-Val said she expected to play a more stable game than the Americans.

"I thought we would have been able to have played better, but I do not want to say that I believed we could have won," she said. "We have learned our lesson that we need to train more and more if we want to achieve our objectives."

For Gerusa, the fact that it was the first time Val and she had played against the Americans complicated things even further.

"We went into the match in the dark," she said. "They are excellent players and the simple fact of playing against them was already a dream. We can't wait for the Swatch-FIVB World Tour to begin."

The 2004 Swatch-FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour kicks off with a women's tournament March 9-14 in Fortaleza, Brazil. The men's tour begins the following week (March 16-21) in Salvador, Brazil.

For more information, go to the USA Volleyball web site.