Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 7, 2016 - Monika Brzostek and Kinga Kolosinska got off to a slow start as the first-ever Polish women’s team to compete in the Olympic beach volleyball competition finished fast here Sunday morning against a tandem from the United States in a Pool A match in the Rio 2016 “Summer” Games.
Playing in the same group with Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca of Brazil and Ekaterina Birlova/Evgeniya Ukolova of Russia, Brzostek and Kolosinska posted a 2-1 (14-21, 21-13, 15-7) win in 48 minutes over Lauren Fendrick and Brooke Sweat of the United States.
It was the third-straight win for the Polish pair in four international meetings with the Americans, who defeated Brzostek and Kolosinska at the 2015 FIVB World Championships in the Netherlands. The setback for the USA also snapped a string of 19-straight pool play successes in the Olympics for American women's teams since Athens 2004.
Scoring runs highlighted each set. In the first set, USA broke an 8-8 tie with a 13-6 run. In the second set, Poland led 3-2 and then scored eight-straight points. Brzostek and Kolosinska started slowly in the decider and trailed 2-4 before putting together a 10-point run to take a commanding 12-4 lead and finish with a Pool A win to tie Talita and Larissa for the group leadership.
The Pool A participants resume play Tuesday with Fendrick and Sweat playing Talita and Larissa and Brzostek and Kolosinska meeting the Russians. As the top-seeded team in the women’s Olympic competition, Talita and Larissa have a 4-0 match mark against the Americans and have never played the Poles.
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