April Ross Adds Second International Medal This Season

For their second medal of the season after winning the Norwegian grand slam, Boss (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) and Ross (Newport Beach, Calif.) split $22,000 for second-place. With their 48-minute victory, Juliana and Larissa claimed their third-straight SWATCH gold medal and fifth this season while collecting the $32,000 St. Petersburg Open first-place prize.

The title win avenged an earlier setback in the competition to Americans as Boss and Ross advanced to their second SWATCH-FIVB World Tour semifinal by defeating Juliana and Larissa 21-17 and 21-17 in the winner’s bracket quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon.

“We played a lot smarter today,” said the 24-year old Juliana, who was named the SWATCH most outstanding player for the St. Petersburg Open. “Boss and Ross have a great service game and we handled their serves a lot better today. It is also great to win in Russia again. We look forward to returning next year.”

This week’s gold-medal effort also pushed Juliana and Larissa to the top spots on the SWATCH-FIVB World Tour standings after trailing China’s Jia Tian and Jie Wang through the first 14 events this season. The Brazilians have now amassed 6,920 points for their best 12 FIVB finishes this season while Tian and Wang have compiled 6,740 points for their top dozen placements.

Juliana and Larissa have captured the past two SWATCH-FIVB World Tour points titles. The St. Petersburg Open was their 50th FIVB event together with the pair competing Saturday in their 31st international beach volleyball final. The Brazilians rank third on the all-time FIVB earnings list behind Brazil’s Adriana Behar/Shelda Bede ($2,195,965) and Americans Misty May-Treanor (Costa Mesa, Calif.)/Kerri Walsh (Santa Clara, Calif.) ($1,346,040) with $1,207,350.

In the bronze-medal match, third-seeded Nicole Branagh (Orinda, Calif.) and Elaine Youngs (El Toro, Calif.) earned the United States’ second podium spot with a 21-14 and 21-14 win in 36 minutes over fifth-seeded Vassiliki Arvaniti and Vasso Karadassiou of Greece. In sharing the $16,000 third-place prize, Branagh and Youngs posted their best SWATCH finish in nine FIVB events together. The Greeks split $12,000 for fourth-place.

The 12th of 13 double gender events on the 2007 SWATCH-FIVB World Tour calendar, the St. Petersburg Open concludes Sunday with the men’s medal matches where Russian’s Dmitri “Bars” Barsouk and Igor “Bazooka” Kolodinsky face Harley Marques and Pedro Salgado of Brazil. The St. Petersburg Open is the women’s final international event in Europe with the next stop being at the end September in Fortaleza, Brazil.

More information is available on the FIVB beach volleyball web site at www.fivb.org/en/BeachVolleyball/index.asp.

Source: http://usavolleyball.org/VolleyballNews/news.asp?id=1886