Olympics beach volleyball: Benesh-Partain defeat Morocco in bizarre sweep

Andy Benesh, Miles Partain survive Morocco scare

There have been upsets during these Olympic Games and there have been commanding victories. But there has not been anything quite as bizarre in Paris — even the opening ceremonies didn’t reach this level of weird — as Andy Benesh and Miles Partain’s unexpectedly wild 21-12, 28-26 win Tuesday over Morocco’s Mohamed Abicha and Zouheir Elgraoui.

Nothing about the first 35 minutes of the match suggested anything out of the ordinary. Benesh and Partain appeared urgent, focused, adjusting from an 21-18, 21-18 opening-match loss to Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz to regain the form that has them as the second seed in Pool D and the ninth overall.

Benesh and Partain, error-prone and blocked seven times by Alayo on Saturday, didn’t hit a single error during their 21-12 opening-set victory over Morocco. By the technical timeout of the second set, there were still zero American errors on the board, while Partain had kills on 12 of his 16 attempts. It all added up to an 18-11 lead that seemed insurmountable.

And then, bizarrely, the version of Benesh and Partain that was so convincing during that opening set and established a seven-point second set lead disappeared, replaced by the error-prone edition from Saturday. Errors, mistakes of both the physical and mental variety compounded into a 9-2 Morocco run, sending the set well into overtime until, at long last, Benesh put it to an end with a block to seal the win, 25-23.

Until he didn’t.

Abicha, the 44-year-old defender competing in his second Olympic Games, challenged the block. Kevin Wong, doing analysis for NBC, laughed it off.

“I call this the challenge from the grave,” he said with a chuckle.

It seemed a challenge out of frustration. Abicha was incensed before the point, arguing that Benesh was lathering up the ball in sweat prior to his serve. So he challenged for a net fault on Benesh, for seemingly no other reason than because he had one and he can’t roll it over into their next match.

But then, unbelievably, the challenge was successful.

Even Wong and Chris Marlowe, doing play-by-play, couldn’t believe it. The video showed the net moving, yes, but, as Benesh would emphatically argue after, it was the ball that clipped the net on the way down, not his arm. Benesh attempted to challenge the challenge which, of course, did not happen. On and on he argued — but on the match went, the crowd now fervently on the side of Morocco, the biggest underdogs on the men’s side of these Olympic Games.

It could only do so much. Benesh and Partain terminated every first-ball in side-out, and At 27-26, a Morocco overset was put away by Benesh to finish off what might not be the most memorable match of these Olympics, but certainly its most bizarre.

Cuba upsets Brazil’s George Wanderley, Andre Loyola

The most notable result of Tuesday’s slate of Olympic beach volleyball matches is Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz’s 21-13, 21-18 sweep over Brazil’s George Wanderley and Andre Loyola. The win, Cuba’s second after sweeping Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, puts Diaz and Alayo in the driver’s seat of Pool D, with only Morocco remaining.

Everything else has been quite normal, with all of the favorites winning. Germany’s Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler, in their Olympic debut, swept France wild cards Remi Bassereau and Julien Lyneel, 21-15, 21-17, and it has been sweeps all the way down on Tuesday. Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Michal Bryl beat Australia’s Thomas Hodges and Zach Schubert (21-16, 21-16), Italy’s Valentina Gottardi and Marta Menegatti took care of Egypt, and Brazil’s Barbara Seixas and Carol Salgado did the same to Lithuania’s Monika Paulikiene and Aine Raupelyte.

We will be updating this story progressively throughout the day, concluding with Miles Evans and Chase Budinger’s matchup with the Netherlands’ Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot. Results from Tuesday’s Olympic beach volleyball action will be below.

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