Miles Partain and Andrew Benesh kept the United States alive for the men’s beach volleyball gold medal when they defeated Italians Samuele Cottafava and Paolo Nicolai 2-0 on Monday in the Round of 16 in Paris.
At the temporary Eiffel Tower volleyball court, Partain and Benesh prevailed 21-17, 21-18. Partain was responsible for 12 of the United States’ 20 kills, while Benesh patrolled the net and racked up five block points.
“We are just trying to be aggressive and be the best we are capable of, win or lose. Our vision is farther than any one game, even here at the Olympics,” Partain said, per USAVolleyball.org. “Playing before thousands of fans is awesome and something I will remember for the rest of my life.”
Next up for Partain and Benesh will be the Qatari duo of Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan, who won first place in Pool A before sweeping Chile’s Marco Grimalt and Esteban Grimalt 2-0 on Monday.
The American duo of Miles Evans and Chase Budinger saw its run in Paris come to an end. Evans and Budinger fell to Norway’s Anders Berntsen Mol and Christian Sandlie Soerum 21-16, 21-14.
Budinger, a former college basketball star and NBA player, was competing in his first Olympics after making his professional beach volleyball debut in 2018.
The only other men’s match of the day saw Spain’s Pablo Herrera Allepuz and Adrian Gavira Collado defeat Poland’s Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak 2-0.
In the women’s bracket, the American team of Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth dropped a pair of close sets and lost to Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, 21-19, 21-18.
The United States now has one women’s team remaining in the competition. Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng had already advanced to the quarterfinals by outlasting Italy’s Valentina Gottardi and Marta Menegatti 21-18, 17-21, 15-12 on Sunday.
In other women’s action Monday, Latvia’s Anastasija Samoilova and Tina Graudina defeated Germany’s Cinja Tillmann and Svenja Mueller 2-1; the Spanish duo of Daniela Alvarez Mendoza and Tania Moreno Matveeva rallied past Dutch foes Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon, 2-1; and Brazilians Ana Patricia Silva Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa beat Japan’s Akiko Hasegawa and Miki Ishii 2-0.
–Field Level Media
