Rogers overcomes sickness to pace USA beach volleyball win

It was not the "best of times" for the Todd Rogers on the beach volleyball circuit here Thursday during the opening two rounds of the $180,000 Brazilian Open as the American played through a bout of stomach sickness to lead his team to a pair of main draw wins.

Teamed with Sean Scott as the 12th-seeded team in the 32-team double-elimination main draw, Rogers became ill during his second match Thursday and had to call for a five-minute medical time out to recover. With the match tied 3-3 in the third and deciding set against Canada's John Child and Mark Heese, Rogers recovered as the USA pair scored a 21-15, 19-21 and 16-14 in 82 minutes.

"It wasn't so much about the hot and humid conditions," said Rogers, "but I just could not keep anything down. I just lost it and really had nothing left in the tank. I started feeling sick to my stomach in our first match. I have never lost it like that in a tournament."

Rogers and Scott opened play Thursday with a 17-21, 21-17 and 15-9 come-from-behind win over 21st-seeded Pedro Cunha and Pará Ferreira in the first-round of the winner's bracket in the SWATCH-FIVB World Tour season opener for men in Salvador, Brazil.

"Give Todd a lot of credit for that win," said Scott. "He's the man. He really had to gut it through in the third set against Canada. I know it was tough for him. I really admired his play at the end because he was not feeling good."

While Rogers and Scott advance a third-round match in the winner's bracket against fourth-seeded Markus Dieckmann and Jonas Reckermann of Germany, one of the two United States tandems in the elimination rounds advanced to Friday's action.

After opening with a 21-15 and 21-15 win over 20th-seeded Julius Brink and Kjell Schneider of Germany, Dax Holdren and Stein Metzger were out-lasted 19-21, 23-21 and 15-12 in 77 minutes by Dieckmann and Reckermann. The 13th-seeded Americans will play 22nd-seeded Iver Horrem and Bjorn Maaseide of Norway Friday morning after eliminating 19th-seeded Stephane Canet and Mathieu Hamel of France 21-16 and 21-16.

Fifth-seeded Dain Blanton and Jeff Nygaard dropped a 21-18 and 22-20 to the 28th-seeded Child and Heese tandem in their opening match Thursday morning, but bounced back with a 21-18 and 21-17 win over Cunha and Pará, who were playing their third-straight team from the United States. The Brazilians eliminated Eric Fonoimoana and Kevin Wong Wednesday in the finals of the Qualification Tournament for the $180,000 Brazilian Open.

Blanton and Nygaard's tournament ended after dropping a 21-17, 17-21 and 15-10 elimination match to 11th-seeded Mariano Baracetti and Martin Conde of Argentina. For placing 17th, Blanton and Nygaard shared $3,000.

Friday's play opens with four matches in the third-round of the winner's bracket where host Brazil has three teams competing along with two tandems from Germany, and one team each from Cuba, Switzerland and the United States. Eighteen matches will be played Friday with four teams advancing Saturday's semi-finals. The medal matches will be played Sunday where the Gold Medal team wins the $27,000 first-place prize.

Top-seeded Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos of Brazil play ninth-seeded Christoph Dieckmann and Andreas Scheuerpflug of Germany to start the winner's bracket matches with 14th-seeded Tande Ramos and Franco Neto of Brazil facing sixth-seeded Stefan Kobel and Patrick Heuscher of Switzerland and seventh-seeded Fred Souza and Pedro Brazão of Brazil meeting 18th-seeded Francisco Alvarez and Juan Rosell of Cuba.

Other elimination matches to start Friday's play has 29th-seeded Kristjan Kais and Rivo Vesik of Estonia challenging Baracetti and Conde and eighth-seeded Nikolas Berger and Clemens Doppler of Austria facing 17th-seeded Andrew Schacht and Joshua Slack of Australia. Second-seeded Benjamin Insfran and Harley Marques, who were upset by Alvarez and Rosell earlier Thursday, play 24th-seeded Javier Bosma and Pablo Herrera of Spain.

For more information on FIVB beach volleyball, go to the FIVB web site.