All-American final in beach volleyball

LONDON, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings won two tense sets over a team from China Tuesday and reached the Olympic beach volleyball finals.

May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings are trying for their third Olympic gold medal in a row and they had to do plenty of work to get past Xue Chen and Zhang Xi 22-20, 22-20.

That set up an all-American gold medal match that will also feature April Ross and Jennifer Kessy.

The second American duo came from a set down Tuesday to defeat Brazilians Juliana Silva and Larissa Franca 15-21, 21-19, 15-12.

May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings fell behind 13-7 in the opening set before running off six consecutive points. The Chinese team saved one set point at 19-20 but couldn't salvage the second one.

China had a chance to win the second set at 20-19 but the U.S. stars scored three straight points to finish the match.

Ross and Kessy came from four points behind to win the second set, then let two match points away in the second set before defeating the Brazilians.

In the first of the men's semifinals Tuesday, Alison Cerruti and Emanuel Rego of Brazil

defeated Latvians Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins in two sets. The German team of Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann were 21-14, 21-16 winners over Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil of the Netherlands in the other semifinal.