Summer and Hughes win and wait for the conclusion of their pool to know their futures

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Sara Hughes serves against the Dutch

Summer Ross and Sara Hughes entered their last pool play match in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals Hamburg 2018 presented by Vodafone knowing that their efforts alone might not be enough to get them through the elimination round, but the Americans wanted to make sure they would take care of their part of the deal.

With a convincing performance, Hughes and Summer dominated European champions Sanne Keizer and Madelein Meppelink of the Netherlands and earned a 21-15, 24-22 victory. Now, they must wait.

“It was so intense out there”, Summer said. “The Dutch played really well and we just had a battle in side outs. They gave us a heck of a fight, but Sara dug tons of balls and all I can remember is just turning around and setting and her crushing it.”

The match that will ultimately decide the faith of the Americans in Hamburg will be the one between Germany’s Julia Sude/Chantal Laboureur and Brazil’s Maria Elisa Antonelli/Carolina Solberg, also on Saturday. The team that loses this game will have the same two victories Hughes and Summer do, taking the decision about the third and last qualified team in Pool A to points ratio.

“We’ll just cross our fingers,” Hughes joked. “We had to win and we did our job out there, so all we can do is hoping the volleyball gods are on our side. We are happy about what we did. I really want to keep playing in this tournament, so we’ll see.”

For the Dutch, however, it was certainly the last match in Hamburg. The Europeans end their season with four consecutive losses, but very proud of what they accomplished, including the title of the 2018 European Championships and a bronze medal at the Vienna Major.

“We had the same problems as in every other games, we couldn’t close the sets,” Keizer commented. “The second set was a lot better than the first and we tried to measure up with them, who are very solid, but we made too many mistakes. It’s obviously not good to end the season with four losses, but we are very happy that we had a chance to play here and about the progress we made.”

The rallies just keep getting better! Watch all of the #HamburgFinals on BeachStream [link in bio🔝] @sarah_pavan @melissahumanaparedes @bieneckschneider @vodafone_de @hamburg_de @redbullgermany

51 Likes, 1 Comments - Beach Volleyball Major Series (@beachmajorseries) on Instagram: "The rallies just keep getting better! Watch all of the #HamburgFinals on BeachStream [link in bio🔝]..."