Faced with one of the best teams in the world, Germans Svenja Müller and Cinja Tillmann, who took bronze at the 2022 World Championships, Alix and Harward pulled off a strong two-set (25-23, 21-14) win to celebrate their first triumph as partners and start their campaign in Mexico on the right foot.
A Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, the 33-year-old Alix was in excellent form against the Germans, producing 19 points with 15 kills, three aces and one block. The Americans will now play Brazil’s Tainá Bigi and Victoria Lopes and China’s Jie Dong and Fan Wang in their remaining Pool K matches.
“We’re really happy,” Alix, who took silver at the 2019 World Championships, told Volleyball World. “Germany are a great team and we’ve been preparing really hard for the last two months. Paris didn’t go the way we wanted and we’re just excited to have more opportunities to compete together. We have a tough pool. Brazil and China are both really good teams and we’re not expecting anything to be easy. Maybe our opponents didn’t know much about us as a team but now they will have a little bit more information to scout.”
