Toronto, Canada, September 15, 2016 - April Ross and Kerri Walsh Jennings won their second match here Thursday at the SWATCH FIVB World Tour Finals by defeating Isabelle Forrer and Anouk Verge-Depre of Switzerland in two sets.
After defeating Australians Louise Bawden and Taliqua Clancy in two sets earlier Thursday afternoon, Ross and Walsh Jennings ended play with a 2-0 (27-25, 21-19) Pool A win in 39 minutes over Forrer and Verge-Depre.
The Americans, who are now 5-0 against the Swiss women on the FIVB World Tour, played both of their Thursday opponents at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Kerri Walsh Jennings - “Today was a really good day. It was really fun, we played great teams. The Swiss team is always very good against us and it was funky conditions because it was really hard to see out there (because of sun directly in eyes on one side). This morning our first match against the Aussies was really good. We’ve played them (SUI) a lot this year so we’re comfortable against them and they’re comfortable against us. Usually it comes down to who serves tough and who makes less errors. Today it was really hard to see on the far side so you wanted to score as many points as you could on the good side. We look forward to the playoff rounds and we are excited to compete.“
“It would mean a lot to win here. This is the season ending event and Hannes (Jagerhorfer) has put on an amazing event with a lot of prize money. We’re here in Canada, which I haven’t been to in so long, and the fans are great. Most importantly April and I have had a really amazing season. The bronze medal is very, very special to us; we finished the tournament (Rio) with a win against the number one seed in the world. So to finish here with a gold medal against the 12 best in the world. That’s the goal, that’s the plan."
Isabelle Forrer - "It was really tight like at the Olympics. We were really excited to have a rematch against them. We couldn’t finish the first set even though we had like three set points with serve but we had service mistakes in the end."
"In the second set it was 6-5 and we already had three big points we didn’t finish. A lot of missed chances and a tight game in a 2-0 loss. It was not our best game and it’s sad we couldn’t win a set and push it to the third."
(on the knockout phase) "It’s really nice to be here anyway, it’s the season final and we belong to the eight best teams of the season. It’s super exciting and each game could be our last game of the season and we’re going to enjoy it as much as possible."