Taiana and Talita making 2021 look like 2013

Eight years it’s been.

Eight years since Taiana Lima and Talita Antunes have won an event together, and seven since Taiana has won an event at all. At the time of their last victory, in August of 2013, in Berlin, Germany, that would have seemed preposterous.

Eight years it would take for them to win again? No chance.

This was the 2013 Team of the Year, the eventual Tour Champion. It couldn’t possibly take nearly a decade for them to add another gold to their partnership. Yet it would.

In 2014, they split, Talita turning to Larissa Franca, Taiana to Fernanda Alves. Both were successful in their own right. Talita and Larissa won six consecutive events at the beginning of their partnership and kept that momentum rolling all the way to the Rio Olympics, where they entered as the No. 1 seed. Taiana and Fernanda, meanwhile, won the second event of their partnership and quickly climbed the ranks.

And then, in 2019, the reunion.

Talita and Taiana reignited the partnership, though it would take until August of 2019, in Moscow, to win a medal (silver), and April of 2021 to make it a medal of the golden variety. Talita and Taiana made their gold the wildest ride possible, winning four consecutive matches in three sets, including victories over fellow Brazilians Ana Patricia Silva and Rebecca Cavalcanti (22-20, 17-21, 16-14), Agatha Bednarczuk and Eduarda 'Duda' Lisboa (21-14, 10-21, 15-13) and Canadians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan (19-21, 24-22, 15-10).

It was a gold well-earned.

A gold eight years in the making.

Welcome back, Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy

If it feels as if it has been forever since we’ve seen the likes of Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy, well, it sort of has. They are, without a shred of doubt, one of the best teams on the planet. We just haven’t seen much of them is all.

After playing 12 events in 2018, in which four resulted in gold medals, Artacho del Solar and Clancy have played just nine events since. Of those nine, they have brought home medals in five – two gold, one silver, two bronze. While they may not have won a medal in Cancun, their presence was felt as much as ever.

Clancy and Artacho del Solar handed Americans April Ross and Alix Klineman defeat and a ninth-place finish, winning 29-27, 21-15, deploying their deadly option attack and spread offence that has only become more difficult to stop.

Any tournament with the Australians in it becomes infinitely more interesting because enormous matchups like that one, which are every bit as talented as a gold medal match, can happen in the ninth-place rounds.

Those rounds, strangely enough, were as far as any American would make it.

No medals for the United States

Momentum, and morale, was awfully high in the United States in the wake of the Doha 4-star. In Doha, the U.S. brought home a gold medal, thanks to April Ross and Alix Klineman, who became the No. 1 ranked team in the world with that gold. Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb added a bronze, while Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena and Emily Stockman and Kelley Kolinske added fourth-place finishes each. It marked the first time in many years that the U.S. sent four teams to the semifinals.

In Cancun, there were none.

It was a startling reversal from the success of just a month prior. But that’s what can happen in a tour with so much parity and depth. Klineman and Ross took ninth, just the fifth time in their partnership they’ve finished outside of the top five. Kolinske and Stockman captured ninth as well, while Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat finished 17th, and Kelly Claes and Sarah Sponcil, fifth-place finishers in Doha, failed to make it out of the qualifier. Not a single American team, either on the men’s or women’s side, competed in the final two days of the main draw, a big shift from the dominance of Doha.  

A Cancun honeymoon for Cinja Tillmann and Chantal Laboureur

The entry list for German teams in Cancun can be an awfully confusing one. For the first two events, Cinja Tillmann and Chantal Laboureur are playing together. For the final, Tillmann is with Margareta Kozuch, and Laboureur with Sarah Schultz.

Judging by how the first one went, perhaps they should make it all three.

Tillmann and Laboureur, competing in their first event together, claimed arguably the most impressive finish of the entire tournament, taking fourth despite being seeded No. 20. They toppled Olympic qualifiers Lili Fernandez and Elsa Baquerizo, nearly upset eventual silver medallists Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan, then knocked out Japan’s Miki Ishii and Megumi Murakami, Tanja Huberli and Nina Betschart, Clancy and Artacho del Solar, and then put on one heck of a display of grit and toughness in the bronze medal match against Agatha and Duda.

The first set of that match required 72 points for Agatha and Duda to finally win, 37-35. The Brazilians would prevail again in the second, winning 21-16, but the fourth-place finish was the best for Tillmann since a gold medal at the 2018 Tokyo 3-star.

With only one tournament as a team left in their foreseeable future, it’s best to catch them while you can and watch as much Tillmann-Laboureur as you can in tournament two.

Cuba thrives in return to competition

It is a rare sight, to see Cuba on the entry list. It is also a frightful one.

It’s not often that the Cuban federation sends teams on the World Tour, but when it does, the results are typically excellent. Cancun was no exception. Two Cuban teams are competing in the Cancun bubble: Lidiannis Echeverria and Yanisleidis Sanchez, and Mailen Deliz and Leila Martinez. They entered as the No. 12 and 19 seeds in the qualifier, respectively, and left with ninth-place finishes each. They are no strangers to beach volleyball success, Cuba.

Deliz and Martinez have won five consecutive NORCECAs, while Sanchez and Echeverria have taken three straight silvers. That continental success translated to Cancun, as Martinez and Deliz upset Artacho del Solar and Clancy, won their pool, and nearly pulled off another upset over Brazil’s Ana Patricia and Rebecca.

Echeverria and Sanchez narrowly missed winning their pool, but they advanced to ninth anyway with a victory over Sanne Keizer and Madelein Meppelink of the Netherlands.

For the second and third tournaments in Cancun, they’ll be back in the qualifier, where nobody will want to see them -- except for the fans, who should be tuning in regularly.  

Go to:
Cancun Hub - 1st event
Cancun Hub - 2nd event
Cancun Hub - 3rd event

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