Paris Olympics: USA’s Sara Hughes, Kelly Cheng edge Italy in 3-set thriller to advance to beach volleyball quarterfinals

In a tense match, USA’s Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes defeated Italy’s Valentina Gottardi and Marta Menegatti in beach volleyball Sunday to advance to the Olympic quarterfinals.

The sides split the first two sets, setting up a winner-take-all third in the elimination match. Cheng and Hughes jumped out to an 11-5 lead in the final set, but Gottardi and Menegatti battled back with four straight points to keep the pressure on Team USA.

USA scored a kill to stop the run and went on to a 14-11 lead to serve for match point. Italy responded with a kill to take back the serve. But Cheng secured the match with a kill at the net for the 2-1 (21-18, 17-21, 15-12) USA win.

The Americans advance to face Switzerland’s Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli in the quarterfinals. The Swiss scored a 2-0 (23-21, 21-16) win over Spain’s Liliana Fernández and Paula Soria Gutierrez.

USA and Switzerland each have a day off before their quarterfinal match on Tuesday.

This is a developing story that will be updated.