USA’s Walsh Jennings/A. Ross stops China’s Xue/Xia to win gold medal at FIVB Cincinnati Open

Mason, Ohio, USA, May 21, 2016 – Gold medals on the FIVB Beach Volleyball Tour don’t come easy. USA’s top-seeded home country favorites Kerri Walsh Jennings/April Ross will attest to that as they had to come from behind to finally overcome China’s 11th-seeded Chen Xue/Xinyi Xia in three sets to capture the title of the double-gender FIVB Cincinnati Open, presented by AVP.The event, which is one of the last three Olympic qualifiers through the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour is being held through Saturday at the prominent Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio and the seventh tournament in the stretch of eight straight events on the FIVB World Tour. Next week the FIVB World Tour returns to Russia for the double-gender FIVB Moscow Grand Slam.In the women’s gold medal finale, USA’s top-seeded Walsh Jennings/A. Ross escaped a home country setback by beating China’s 13th-seeded Xue/Xia in three sets, 20-22, 21-14 and 18-16 in 66 minutes. It was the longest women’s match of the tournament (72 total) and only one that lasted over an hour.While many know remember Walsh Jennings, 37, and three consecutive Olympic gold medals (2004, 2008, 2012 with Misty May Treanor) and April Ross, 33, and an Olympic silver medal (2012 with Jennifer Kessy), China’s Chen Xue, 27, is a two time Olympian for her country, winning the bronze medal in 2008 in Beijing and finishing fourth in 2012 in London with her now-retired teammate Xi Zhang and Xia, just 19, is one of the most promising young athletes in China.The first set was a sideout affair with the Chinese eventually getting a couple of extra shots to fall for the 22-20 win.The second set USA came out smoking taking leads of 4-0, 7-1 and 14-6 before the Chinese reeled off seven straight points to close the gap to one at 14-13, USA. USA’s A. Ross seemed to then personally take the game into her hands, scoring six straight points, including three ace serves to reach the first match point at 20-13, After China’s Xia scored on a kill down the left line, A. Ross ended it with a point off of a beautiful dig lob over the net.The tiebreaker set was a game of runs of multiple points  USA struck sand first for a 2-0 lead and then kept serving the younger Xia and a combination of great defense and some serving errors by the youngster kept things in favor of USA. After USA had a three-point run to go up 13-10, China answered with three straight points capped with an ace by Xue. Xue followed …

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