As we left the Stable, our new gym in Baton Rouge, on Friday morning following our second leg lift of the week, Drew said, “going out on top would be a nice conclusion to the beginning.” I responded by nodding my head up and down stating, “that’s going to be my Instagram caption, thanks!”
Fast forward 10 days and a significant time change later, there I was writing The Conclusion to the Beginning in a notes page on a flight from Doha to Dubai in preparation for Taryn and I’s collaborative Instagram post about winning the 2024 World Tour Finals and season coming to an end.
Now let’s get into it.
Like I stated, we got a leg workout in on Friday which was nice to do before our 28hr travel day would begin. We were set to depart out of BTR around 4pm that afternoon and would find ourselves in Dubai around 12am on Sunday morning (aka Saturday night). You read that correctly, I said Dubai even though the event was in Doha. Delta airlines only fly’s into Dubai so we wanted to try and stick with them since we have status. This also provided us with a nice excuse to check out Dubai since we have heard such great things and have just about seen everything that Doha has to offer.
By the time we got to our hotel room it was around 2am and the eyes were ready for some closure. We set alarms for 9am to try and get on their time zone as fast as possible. 9am came FAST and it was one of those alarms where we woke in complete confusion, Taryn especially. I walked out of the bathroom walking towards the bed and answered Taryn’s question of, “are you wearing shoes?” My response while still in my pjs: “umm no and that’s a random question.” We both just started busting out laughing in lieu of Taryn’s deliriousness. We forced ourselves out of bed, got dressed, hit breakfast, and then we were off on our Dubai adventures. The Dubai Frame, the mall of Dubai, aka the largest one in the world, and lots of walking. It was a successful acclimation and activation day before heading to Doha.
The Monday morning alarm came early since we were scheduled to depart to Doha around 10:05 which had us arriving around 10:30am Doha time. I struggled big time to sleep Sunday night. Maybe got 2-3 hours of restless sleep which made Monday extremely difficult. I felt like a walking zombie. I had spurts of energy and then I was just dead. I took a 40 minute nap before we the gym and it was one those naps where you wake up and think you are in a different universe but it was only 3pm and in this universe we were headed to the gym. The female gym did not have a ton of equipment so our gym session pretty much just turned into a stretching and movement session. We tried to do the viral dancing with the stars move (what we were attempting) but it did not go well in the slightest… guess we’ll stick to beach volleyball.
Post gym we hit the market for waters, sprite 0, and almond milk… aka the usual. We made a pit stop at the local coffee shop for some afternoon caffeine since practice with Latvia was not until 8pm. Pre practice we went to Grams Restaurant, our favorite in Doha and the place we would frequent yet again. Grams has a market connected that is nothing but high protein bars, snacks, treats, etc. We mutually decided if we won the tournament we were coming back to raid said market.
Every morning in Doha looked pretty identical since nothing started before noon. This meant chill morning which we both love. Waking up to our 8:30 alarms, figuring out attire matching attire for the day, heading down to get our plate of hard boiled eggs, runny scrambled eggs, slices of ham, bread and lastly cantaloupe. The two things that would add a little difference to the morning would be if the cantaloupe was good and what bread I was going to select for the day since the options were just about endless. Taryn and I would be perfectly content with eating this same breakfast for the rest of our lives so needless to say we looked forward to breakfast every morning.
Practice with the Italians was at noon. Neither one of us had a coach so we warmed up, did a little serve receive and then just played two sets. It was nice to get back to playing to 21 and in deeper sand. It felt like we were playing beach volleyball again and I left that practice very confident in our capabilities for the tournament. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing, preparing for Santa in the Sand and doing some Christmas shopping of our own.
Unlike breakfast, the dinners are typically what we get tired of especially in Doha. They thoroughly enjoy seasonings and many of them at that. It is not necessarily what you love to be eating right before or after playing but is what it is I guess.
We had the first round off, so we got to watch everyone else in our pool battle it out in the Doha heat before our slated match against our Netherland friends Stam/Schoon at 6pm. During warm ups for this match, Schoon asked if when she hits a jumbo if she should expect a jumbo back from me since she saw the video AVP posted (this video). I told her I’d keep her guessing but internally was definitely thinking that I would have to at least attempt to get her back if she does it to me. We were playing well and it felt like we were right back into the thick of things in international play. It felt comfortable even though we were definitely shaking the rust off of the Mikasa ball. Schoon did hit me with a jumbo so of course when we were up a couple points in the second set I tried to get her back on two unsuccessful attempts in the same rally. They were not hit well but it had School laughing mid play while digging them. She won the jumbo battle but we won the overall match. Better start to ’24 WTF (World Tour Finals) than last year.
The international rematch a lot of people were wanting… us vs Mel/Brandie. Our first time against each other internationally after the ended our Olympic dreams. Think that will always leave a little bitter taste in my mouth but this match is just like any other match… Taryn and I are going to go out and do our best to win. This day in particular just so happened to be our day and we played extra well. The ending point pretty much summed up the match… everything going our way! 2-0 start! Our evening match against the young Spaniards was a big one. They were 0-2 in need of a win and we were 2-0 looking to solidify top spot in pool. It was a back and forth game. They were playing well and in my opinion we were playing average. We were not capitalizing on the big plays but we were doing enough to stay steady and when it mattered most we made a play and pulled out the first set. Second set was similar and thankfully we walked away unscathed and headed into day 3 with a clean 3-0 sheet.
I knew going in that we had a strong shot to be automatically into the semis regardless if we won or not. I knew our point differential would be pretty good but when we started down 10-4 against the Germans I was slightly concerned. Winning pool and being sent directly to semis is huge compared to having to come back out Friday evening and play another match. We somehow came back and won the first set but couldn’t pull out the tight second. Third set tie breaker had them, especially the defender, playing significantly better than us. They handed us a beat down and most importantly a more stressful hour post match waiting to see if we had done enough to claim top spot in our pool.
As we were walking to Grams for our late lunch/early dinner the phone updated… we were into the semis. Night and day difference from last year where we were just hoping we made it out of pool. Relaxing in bed after a shower watching our potential opponents is wayyyy better than being out at the courts starting a match at 8pm.
I woke up Saturday morning to Taryn saying, “Good morning! Happy last day of season.” It had been a very long, tiresome and mentally challenging season to say the least. We had been talking about looking forward to a break since before Paris and now we were one day away from that break but first we were two matches away from defending our title and securing the biggest prize purse in the sport. One last day in the year to give it everything we have left, embrace every point, and enjoy every moment. Embracing the opportunity was kind of our mindset coming into the event since we had no clue if we were even going to get in or not. China helped us out a little bit by handing us a handful of points; however, I like to think that we were causing some of these uncharacteristic errors. We cruised to a 2 set victory leading to me excitedly saying to Taryn at least 5 times the rest of the day, “we are playing in the finals, what?!.”
Our fellow Americans and sweethearts Meg & Therese. They are just a likeable team especially off the court but when we step on the court against them like all other teams we want to beat them. We wanted to go out on top in 2024. They had been rolling through the tournament and were on a very hot streak as this was their 3rd tourney in a row in the finals. They were even rolling in our first set as they had us 14-11 and then 17-14. It was at 17-14 on the bad side where we flipped an imaginative switch. We made key plays and stole the set 21-19. We found ourselves in a similar position in the second set down 14-11 with again some sort of flip switched to engaged and we went on a tear… finding ourselves with 3 match points up 20-17. They served me the ball and of course I could not put away cleanly. I hit it off the top of Cannon’s hands where she was able to turn and set Megan but fortunately for us Meg sent the attack sailing long angle… 2024 Back to Back World Tour Finals Champions. You seriously can’t ask for a better ending to a season. Or better yet a better ending to the beginning.
Like my Instagram post, we are so incredibly thankful, blessed and grateful for the opportunities that we have embarked on this year. We could not do any of it without our support team. We feel the love no matter where we are. Thank you all for following along on our crazy journey. Till next year! Happy Holidays! :)
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