Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson Win Gold at Shanghai Grand Slam

By Alex Baker

Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson captured the gold medal in men’s beach volleyball at the Shanghai Grand Slam on Saturday. The AVP duo pulled off an upset victory in the final over the heavily favored Brazilian team of Pedro Salgado and Bruno Schmidt, winning 21-16, 9-21, 15-9. The win gave Gibbs and Patterson a perfect 7-0 record in the tournament.

After losing the first set in the final, the Brazilians rallied back in the second. However the third set proved decisive for the Americans, with Gibbs making three straight stuffs to give the U.S. duo six points in a row. The Brazilians held on, resisting two match points, before Gibbs finally converted on the third.

“Beyond excited! Amazing match,” Patterson said afterwards, via an FIVB press release. “It was very windy so it was very hard to do anything; serve, side out, pass, set, so it was pretty much a survival match.”

The Shanghai Grand Slam was only Gibb’s and Patterson’s second event together. To advance to the final clash with the Brazilians, they beat out Poland’s Michal Kadziola and Jakub Szalankiewicz, 17-21, 21-17, 15-11.

Salgado and Schmidt meanwhile, defeated their fellow countrymen Ricardo Santos and Alvaro Filho on their march to the final. Santos and Filho, for their part, knocked out Phil Dalhausser and Sean Rosenthal, 21-19, 19-21, 15-13, earlier in the tournament.

“Ricardo and Alvaro played pretty well,” said Dalhausser in a press release following their elimination at the hands of the Brazilians. “We had a questionable call going against us in the third set and that made a big difference; but that’s no excuse. They played great and we didn’t play our best volleyball.”

Santos and Filho advanced to win the bronze medal, defeating Kadziola and Szalankiewicz, 21-12, 21-10, earlier on Saturday.

The gold medal on the women’s side was captured by the Brazilian duo of Talita Antunes da Rocha and Talana de Souza Lima, who defeated Austria’s Doris and Stefanie Schwaiger, 21-13, 21-11.

The women’s bronze went to the competition’s other sister act, Maria Clara and Carolina Solberg Salgado of Brazil; who bested Madelein Meppelink and Sophie van Gestel of the Netherlands, 16-21, 21-19, 15-8.