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Flash Quotes

General Quotes

About the adjustments made during the match:

Pauline Manser (AUS):

"I had a bad passing streak, and I tried to get myself out of that.  If you pass the ball somewhere near the net, you have a pretty good chance of siding-out.  That was the difference toward the end of the match."

About change in serve strategy:

Kerri Pottharst (AUS):

"Toward the end, we had to change something, to see if we could scam some more points.  So we switched up and started serving Adrianna, and that worked quite well.  We blocked her a couple of times and picked her up.   And she wasn't into the game because Shelda was doing all the siding-out in the first half of the game.  And then we thought we'd give a short serve just to mix it up a bit.  It was probably a good decision to (try), but it wasn't well executed."

About the point differential in the tournament standings:

Kerri Pottharst (AUS):

"I don't think of that during the game.  We have to make as many points as we can because we're trying to win every game.  We still believe we can beat that team every time we play them.  For some reason, we don't play our best (AUS team is 0-5 lifetime vs. BRA).  As soon as we find out how to play our best all the time, then they better watch out."

About the match:

Adriana Behar (BRA):

"For us, the match was so hard.  We played very well at the beginning.  After it was 12-3, I made so many mistakes, and they changed their service and they serviced to me and I made five mistakes sequentially.  After these mistakes, we played good.  I think Shelda played good defense.  She got to a lot of balls on defense, and we made our points."

About the Goodwill Games:

Adriana Behar (BRA):

"This is the first time we're playing in a tournament like this.  We didn't come to the Olympic Games.  We didn't have enough points at that time (to qualify).  It's different to play the Goodwill Games than the world tour. Here, we have only eight teams, but they are the best.  This is a special tournament.  Everyone is watching us.  Our country expects something from us. We know it is important to win here."

About the pressure of being ranked No. 1:

Shelda Bede (BRA) (interpreted by Adriana Behar):

"We don't have pressure.  We have the pleasure to be No. 1.  And we know to arrive at being No. 1, we had to work hard.  We know to stay No. 1, we have to work more and more.  We play beach volleyball because we like it and enjoy it."

About the match:

Sona Dosoudilova (CZE):

"It was better than yesterday, and I hope tomorrow will be better.  We are here for three days, and we were tired (yesterday).   Today, we slept well and we're feeling better.  Today, they had better serves, and we were nervous."

About the match:

Holly McPeak (USA):

"We're trying to focus on one game at a time.   Today, the Czechs played well. They served well.  We made a few too many errors in the middle on our sideout game.  But for the most part, I think we're getting stronger.  We made some good defensive plays, and we want to get stronger every day as we prepare to face the Germans tomorrow."

Lisa Arce (USA):

"We're getting used to the sand in this arena.   It's a little deep.  We've been served two different ways.  Today, was mostly deep floaters to the back line, which means I have to run a long way to get back up to the net.  I think our errors came from making that adjustment of getting back up to the net. Now we know if we're served deep, we have to get up there and be really aggressive and not come in with just easy shots.  And if we're served short jump serves, then we know we can use our shots more because we'll be a little faster."

About the Goodwill Games:

Holly McPeak (USA):

"It's a big international event for us.  It's one of the biggest of the year. We play on the international circuit now, so we play a lot of these teams, but no specific event where we play the top eight teams in the world.   So it's a great opportunity for us to prove ourselves as one of the best teams in the world.  The people in the U.S. get to see us and be exposed to the foreign teams as well.  I think that's a neat opportunity for beach volleyball fans all over the world to see the best players in the highest level of competition."

About Friday's match vs. Germany:

Lisa Arce (USA):

"We want to win every time we go out there.  The thing we need to do now is to be opposite the Brazilians in the semis.  We want to play them in the Gold Medal match.  That's the best scenario.  They're good friends of ours, and that's what we kind of said (to them) - win all your matches and we'll see you in the finals.  So we need to win tomorrow to do that."

About playing beach volleyball:

Holly McPeak (USA):

"We really appreciate what we have.  We go to the gym, then we go to the beach, and we practice while the dolphins swim by.  It's the best office in the world."

About the match:

Maike Friedrichsen (GER):

"We did not expect an easy game because we have always had hard matches against them.  I think they put more pressure on us with their service."

Danja Musch (GER):

"I think yesterday they didn't have a good game (against US team Arce/McPeak), and we knew they can play better.  And they showed that today."

About Friday's match vs. USA (Arce/McPeak):

Danja Musch:

"I don't want to think about tomorrow.  I just have to think what went wrong now in this game.  I think I had a really bad game.   They had a good tactic, especially on me.  I just have to relax first and then we'll see about tomorrow."

About not playing many matches as a team prior to the Goodwill Games:

Maike Friedrichsen:

"We had not had very many matches (together) this year.  We just play one and a half tournaments like this.  I think yesterday (win vs. Czech Republic) we showed that that was not the problem.  So we'll see what we can do tomorrow."

(Italian quotes translated by Rita Crockett)

About the difference in play from Wednesday's loss to Thursday's win:

Annamaria Solazzi (ITA):

"Yesterday was our first game, and we got a chance to practice (today). Yesterday, we had to play against the strongest team in the pool (Brazil in Pool B), so it was really hard mentally.  Today, we had to play our last card and play all-out."

About getting an early lead:

Laura Bruschini (ITA):

"Our defect is even when we start out ahead, we have a tendency to let the other team come back a little bit."

Annamaria Solazzi:

"We were much more tranquil today because we had the lead.  We were much more at ease."

Laura Bruschini:

"We had a lot of trust in ourselves because we have never lost to the German team (3-0 lifetime record).  We had confidence."

About Friday's match (vs. Czech Republic):

Annamaria Solazzi:

"Our record against the Czechs is 1-2.  They're a much bigger team.  They have a very good serve.  And we're not as confident going into the match tomorrow as we were going into the match today."

About the match:

Kristine Drakich (CAN):

"At the beginning of the game, we played better than we did yesterday.  We were able to side-out and score off transition.  But toward the end (of today's match), we were not be able to (score off transition).   But I do feel we played a little bit better."

"We got into some setting trouble.  Their serving, I don't know if it was a little tougher, but it put us on the defensive when we should have been on the offensive."

About the tournament:

Kristine Drakich (CAN):

"All the games here are tough.  You have the top teams in the world.  Our hope was to come and play our best volleyball, and we're falling short of that.  So we're slightly disappointed in that.  As for results, we didn't really have expectation.  We just wanted to play our best.  Hopefully, we'll play better tomorrow"

About meeting Ted Turner after Wednesday's loss vs. Brazil:

Kristine Drakich (CAN):

"Yesterday, we were talking with Ted Turner, and he said 'Well, all you can do is go out there and do your best.'  So that's what we're going to do tomorrow."

About the match:

Liz Masakayan (USA):

"It was tough for Karolyn and I to rebound after yesterday's loss (vs. Australia).  We took the time yesterday to heal and we knew we had to come back today and not really think about what happened yesterday.  So that was a big challenge for us because it was pretty devestating for us yesterday.  But we knew we had to come back and compete hard and really come out here believing we could win."

About Friday's match vs. No. 1-ranked Brazil:

Liz Masakayan:

"We all have weaknesses.  It's a matter if you can capitalize on them.  We have seen them play enough, and we obviously know that they're a very good team.  We're happy they're the last team we're going to play in this pool since Karolyn and I needed a couple of games under our belt to feel a little bit   more confident about playing here."

Karolyn Kirby (USA):

"It's probably the biggest match of our partnership so far.  It's really going to challenge us.  We know we have to step up our game, our pace, especially because Brazil has a very fast pace.  They're real low to the ground.  Their ball control is really low and quick and fast and pressing, pressing, pressing.  We have to wake up with that in mind tomorrow and match that tempo. On top of that, we have to have some good serving to put them in a more difficult position to run that tempo at us.  The success of that team is they run a quick, fast pace.   Sometimes they beat teams by large margins because they just spin them off the court."