Americans Crabb, Gibb upset Brazilian team
FORT LAUDERDALE BEACH — It didn’t take long for Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb to realize they could compete.
Maybe two or three seconds.
“At the first point,” Gibb said.
At that moment, they knew they had an opportunity to pull of the upset Thursday at the Fort Lauderdale Major beach volleyball tournament. They defeated the Brazilian tandem of Evandro Goncalves Oliveira Jr. and Andre Loyola Stein 21-16, 21-17, winning the Pool B division and advancing to the Round of 16 in the FIVB event.
Oliveira and Stein entered as the defending Beach Volleyball World Champions.
“Once we played the first point of our first match, all nerves were gone,” Crabb said. “I’m just happy to be here and compete. It’s a lot of fun for me.”
Crabb and Gibb studied film of their opponent for hours before taking the court. The preparation was enough for them to win in straight sets. Crabb fistpumped to the crowd after the final point was scored.
Gibb, 42, is a former Olympian and playing alongside the 26-year-old Crabb.
“We watched their match last year,” Gibb said. “Everybody wants to test the kid [Crabb) but he’s too quick of an arm. He’s too good.”
The victory made playing here even more special for Gibb. He played his first professional tournament in Fort Lauderdale 13 years ago.
“I love this place,” Gibbs said. “We used to come play at the Yankee Clipper. It was the Yankee Clipper then. It’s such a fun beach. It was always the first event of the year like it is now. It’s always nostalgia for me.”
In the marquee men’s match of the day, Brazilians Alison and Bruno Schmidt defeated Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands 21-18, 21-18. It was their first time meeting since the 2016 Olympic semifinals in Rio de Janeiro.
“That semifinal was crazy,” Bruno Schmidt said. “We were so close to ending the match and we let them into the third set. I was so nervous.”
It was one of the most high-energy matches of the day. The teams could meet again later this week. The top two teams from each pool advance.
“In the media there were some articles about the Olympic rematch,” Meeuwsen said. “Of course, we always want to get revenge. But those are the teams you want to compete against and see where you’re at. Today, we weren’t better. I always want to play them. I think it’s really good to play teams on that level. You only get better by playing them.”
The Schmidts are out to prove last year was a fluke. After winning the Fort Lauderdale event in 2015 and the silver medal at the Olympics, they struggled throughout 2017.
“We want to be more competitive than we were last year,” Bruno Schmidt said. “We know that the (tough) time that we had last year will help us have more energy. We don’t want to be thinking about what we did in the last Olympics. We don’t want to be out of the semifinals. We don’t want to be out of the finals. We built this team to win again.”
On the women’s side, a notable elimination was the team of April Ross and Alexandra Klineman. A twotime Olympic medalist, Ross won silver at last year’s World Championships.
srichardson@sun-sentinel .com, Twitter @shandelrich