Beach Volleyball-Spaniards thunder on

By Jane Barrett

BEIJING, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Spain’s Pablo Herrera showed the same form that won him a surprise silver in Athens at the Olympic beach volleyball on Tuesday, thundering the ball across the net to beat Austria 2-0 in their group match.

“That was such a fun game,” said Herrera, who changed partners after the last Olympics to team up again with Raul Mesa.

“If we keep playing like that we can really aspire to something,” the 26-year-old said.

The pair, who won the under-21 world championships in 2001 and the European championships in 2005, now face their biggest challenge in more ways than one.

Top-seeded duo Chinese Wu Penggen and Xu “Tiny” Linyin have stormed through their first two matches with 2.02-metre Tiny blocking almost everything that comes his way at the net.

At the other end of the rankings, bottom-seeded Japan put their first win on the board against the Netherlands in a three-set game of daredevil leaps and powerful overarm smashes.

“What we did today is so important for beach volleyball in Japan. Not that many people play there, so hopefully now they’ll see how fun it is,” said Katsuhiro Shiratori.

U.S. second men’s pair Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal also found their rhythm to beat Germany 2-0.

In the women’s draw, U.S. duo Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh lengthened their winning streak to 103 matches by beating Cuba 2-0 and the second-ranked teams from Brazil and China both won comfortably.

The third pool matches start on Wednesday, at which point the first teams will start to be eliminated.