USA Athletes registered for FIVB Beach Events

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado - USA Volleyball has entered teams for the first two FIVB beach volleyball tournaments of the 2013 season.

Six U.S. women’s beach volleyball teams and five U.S. men’s teams are registered for the Fuzhou Open, the first FIVB Beach Volleyball Open of 2013, which will be played April 23-28 in Fuzhou, China.

The U.S. women will be led by 2012 Olympic silver medalists Jennifer Kessy and April Ross, who finished the 2012 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour ranked fourth and were named the USA Volleyball Beach Team of the Year.

They will be joined by Lauren Fendrick/Nicole Branagh, Jennifer Fopma/Brooke Sweat, Jenny Kropp/Whitney Pavlik, Emily Day/Heather Hughes along with Summer Ross/Brittany Hochevar .

The men’s bracket will include four all new partnerships from the United States.

Todd Rogers and Ryan Doherty will look to improve on their second-place finish at the NORCECA Beach Circuit event in the Cayman Islands on March 22-24.

Brad Keenan and John Mayer, who are the only team that played together last season, will be looking to improve on their second-place finish at the NORCECA Beach Circuit event in the Dominican Republic on March 29-31.

Phil Dalhausser and Sean Rosenthal will make their debut as a team at Fuzhou as will Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson and also Nick Lucena and Sean Scott.

Five U.S. women’s beach volleyball teams and four men’s teams are registered for the Shanghai Grand Slam, which is the first grand slam of 2013, on April 30-May 5.

Kessy/Ross, Fendrick/Branagh and Fopma/Sweat will continue as teams while Summer Ross will join Heather Hughes and Emily Day will team up with Brittany Hochevar.

On the men’s side, Rogers/Doherty, Dalhausser/Rosenthal, Gibb/Patterson and Lucena and Matt Fuerbringer are scheduled to compete.