TOKYO — April Ross and Alix Klineman, an American power duo in beach volleyball, started their Olympics with a win on Sunday, defeating the Chinese team of Xue Chen and Wang Xinxin, 21-17, 21-19.
Ross, 39, has a silver medal from the 2012 Games, when she partnered with Jennifer Kessy, and a bronze medal from 2016 with Kerri Walsh Jennings, the three-time Olympic champion. She is hoping to add gold to her collection with Klineman, 31, who switched to beach volleyball in 2017 after a career in indoor volleyball.
The match would probably have been more enjoyable had it been played on an actual beach: At Shiokaze Park, it was so hot that at least one reporter’s laptop stopped working, and the rows and rows of empty seats in the stadium blocked most of the breeze from Tokyo Bay.