Local beach volleyball stars Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser medaled for the sixth time in seven events on the Swatch-FIVB World Tour on Sunday, taking the bronze at the $600,000 Conoco Phillips Grand Slam in Stavenger, Norway.
Roger-Dalhausser, who have won four gold medals on the international tour this season, defeated Spain’s Adrian Gavira and Pablo Herrera 21-17, 21-16 in 40 minutes to earn a split of $23,000.
The No. 1-ranked team in the world was knocked into the third-place match by eventual Stavenger champions David Klemperer and Eric Koreng of Germany, the tournament’s 11th-seeded team. The Germans prevailed 21-16, 13-21, 15-13 to reach their first final since 2008. It was their first win in six matches against the reigning Olympic champions.
In the all-European title match, Klemperer-Koreng defeated Norway’s Tarjei Skarlung-Martin Spinnangr, 21-16, 21-14, for the gold.
Rogers, in an email interview with Presidiosports.com, praised the play of the German team, but he added that if not for a few of mistakes in the third game they could’ve pulled out the semifinal win.
“They played well,” Rogers said. “I thought I played pretty poorly, though. Phil was good but I just struggled that game … lots of errors and mistakes.”
He said the turning point came in the third game when they failed to convert after a dig at 11-11.
“That would have given us the lead and I felt that would have given us the momentum as well,” Rogers said. “Instead we traded sideouts then I made an error and they ended up siding out on a knuckle pokey over Phil and into the deep angle for the match. Gutsy call by David, but it worked.”
With a Stavanger bronze medal for the second-straight year after winning the gold medal in 2008, Rogers-Dalhausser increased their tour points lead over the Alison Cerutti-Emanuel Rego of Brazil. The Americans have 4,380 points for seven events this season with Alison and Emanuel 880 points behind at 3,500 points.
The last time Rogers-Dalhausser played in a bronze-medal match it was in China, where they lost to the Spaniards — it’s the only tourney this season where they haven’t medaled.
Rogers said the difference was “my finger was broken in China and I was struggling. I was shocked we took fourth. Here, we were consistent and played very steady to win going away.”
Rogers-Dalhausser have won gold medals in Brazil, Italy, Poland and Czech Republic and took a silver in Russia.
While they didn’t win gold this time, Rogers said it’s still a good feeling to earn a podium finish on the World Tour.
“I always want to win, but the FIVB Tour is a much, much stronger tour than the AVP tour,” he said. “Every team out here is good enough to beat pretty much every other team. You see what the top teams on the AVP do out here. One week they take a 5th and the next week a 17th. It is hard out here and a podium finish is always a solid finish.”
The next event on the Swatch-FIVB Tour is a Grand Slam tournament in Switzerland, the country where Dalhausser was born. The Gstaad Grand Slam is July 5-11.
