Maybe you’ve noticed something about Sarah Sponcil’s serve lately: She’s no longer float-serving (not predominantly, anyway). She’s jump-serving, as is at least one player from virtually all of the best teams in the world – April Ross, Melissa Humana-Paredes, Nadezda Makroguzova, Duda.
It was Duda, the Brazilian 22-year-old who has already been named Most Outstanding in the World twice, who appears to have inspired Sponcil to begin jump-serving. It was Duda’s jump-serve that played a huge role in sending Sponcil and Kelly Claes home from Doha with a 14-21, 15-21 loss in the quarterfinals.
Now it’s Sponcil’s jump-serve that played a huge role in sending Duda and Agatha to second in pool – and boosting Sponcil and Claes to the ninth-place rounds in the final Cancun Bubble event.
On Thursday, Sponcil and Claes won both of their pool play matches, the first against fellow Americans and Chasing Gold athletes Kelley Kolinske and Emily Stockman (21-14, 22-20), the second against Agatha and Duda (22-20, 21-11). It was Sponcil and Claes’s second victory in three tries against the Brazilians, no small feat considering their run of late: eight medals in their previous 16 tournaments.
It sets them up as well as they could have reasonably asked. Sponcil and Claes now have a bye into the ninth-place rounds, as do Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat, who also won their pool.
The men’s end was not so great for the Chasing Gold team. Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb lost a close match to Canadians Sam Schachter and Sam Pedlow, 18-21, 21-17, 9-15. That puts them in a win-or-go-home scenario here on out, beginning with the final match of pool play against Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl at 9 a.m. Pacific.
Chasing Gold’s Emily Stockman and Kelley Kolinske find themselves in a familiar predicament. After dropping their first round of pool to Claes and Sponcil – hate to see a Chasing Gold civil war – they must win against Norway to break pool.
