Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat hug following a match at the FIVB 3 Star on March 9, 2019 in Sydney.
Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat teamed up just five months ago but the still-new partnership resulted in a bronze medal at the FIVB World Tour 3-star tournament stop in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday.
The two defeated the Chinese duo of Fan Wang and Xinyi Xia 21-9, 21-9 in the third-place match. After the Americans took the first set, the Chinese fought back early in the second and took a 12-9 advantage. The U.S. duo responded, however, and evened things up at 15-15 before pulling ahead and finishing the match off with another 21-19 victory.
Walsh Jennings and Sweat came out of pool play 1-1 with a loss to the Greek duo of Vasiliki Arvaniti and Panagiota Karagkouni. They would avenge that loss with a 2-0 win over the Greek team in the third round before beating the Australian duo of Becchara Palmer and Nicole Laird in a tiebreaker to reach the third-place game.
Walsh Jennings and Sweat announced their partnership in early October. They won their first medal together later the same month when they took the bronze at an FIVB World Tour 3-star tournament in Chetumal, Mexico. This was their fourth tournament together.
Walsh Jennings is hoping to return to the Olympics for the sixth time and win her fifth medal in 2020. Sweat, a four-time defensive player of the year on the AVP Tour, made her Olympic debut in 2016 playing with Lauren Fendrick.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
