LONG BEACH, Calif. _ For Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross, volleyball after Rio de Janeiro began in a near-empty stadium on the sand in Long Beach on Wednesday morning.
The top U.S. women's beach volleyball team waved to small pockets of fans in the bleachers. They warmed up, with Walsh Jennings working on her passing and Ross smashing serves over the net. Then the public address announcer offered a sliver of reality over the loudspeaker.
"I guess the road to Tokyo starts here," he said, and each player paused for a second.
Walsh Jennings said she got chills. Ross laughed. Just a week ago, they were clawing toward an Olympic bronze medal in Rio's raucous volleyball arena on Copacabana Beach.
Now they were starting pool play in Long Beach _ where 20 teams from Rio are competing across the men's and women's brackets _ and inching toward the $57,000 first-place prize. After that, who knows?
Ross, a 34-year-old Costa Mesa native, is fully committed to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. The 37-year-old Walsh Jennings, now a four-time medalist, hasn't decided.
If nothing else, this week's Grand Slam Asics Tour event offers a big purse and, presumably in the early rounds, the chance to take a collective deep breath.
"I need a minute," Ross said after the top-seeded pair defeated a Canadian team in straight sets Wednesday. "I have full intents to keep going and go for Tokyo, but this is still part of Rio for me. This is kind of our homecoming, so this is all about Rio."
Also competing in Long Beach are Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena, the top-seeded U.S. men's team that lost in a quarterfinal in Rio.
The men's and women's main draws in Long Beach started with 32 teams, and they will be chiseled to 16 teams by Friday. The champions will be crowned Sunday.
The Brazilian pair of Larissa Franca and Talita Antunes will be looking for revenge against Walsh Jennings and Ross. The pairs were expected to meet in the gold-medal match in Rio. Instead, they met for the bronze, and Walsh Jennings and Ross staged a dramatic comeback to win in front of the Franca-Antunes team's home crowd.
"It was the most emotionally diverse 24 hours I've ever been through," Ross said of losing in an Olympic semifinal before winning bronze. "The pressure and the stress going into that semifinal match, and then expecting the best and being devastated. Then having to rebound and turn around and have to play for the bronze, and then the elation of the bronze ... ."
She paused and looked at Walsh Jennings. Both laughed.
"That did a number on us for sure," Ross added.
They had a lackluster practice Tuesday, but Walsh Jennings said they are now re-energized.
Rio's beach volleyball venue was described as an all-night party place, while the stadium in Long Beach expects to fill up as the week goes on.
Take away the music in between points, and the opening match for Walsh Jennings and Ross on Wednesday closely resembled a tennis match: a hush before each serve followed by light clapping if the Americans scored a point.
That didn't cut into the players' energy, as they dived around the sand while barking commands. At one point, Ross yelled, "Get up! Get up!" Walsh Jennings shot back with, "I'm here! I'm here!" Then Ross sternly said, "Hit it," before Walsh Jennings buried a spike past a diving opponent.
The only sound on the beach was their ceaseless banter and, just maybe, the first steps toward Tokyo.
"We're so depleted, so to think about any huge decision is kind of a silly thing," Walsh Jennings said.
"Those four years are really tough."
