FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Kerri Walsh Jennings went into the post-Rio offseason thinking she needed a new partner, with April Ross hoping to get pregnant.
So when Ross reached out to say that she had changed her mind and would return for 2017, Walsh Jennings struggled to contain her excitement.
“I was prepared for anything, but I really love playing with April,” Walsh Jennings said Tuesday.
After claiming bronze in Rio, Ross planned on taking time to decompress from the 2016 season and then try to get pregnant. She took a trip to Las Vegas to see The Chainsmokers, and snowboarded with her family in Montana.
But after a couple of weeks away from training, her first true break in years, Ross started itching to return to the sand.
“I thought I was going to be ready to stop and work on having a family, but when it came down to it, I wasn’t ready to stop,” Ross said.
Starting a family is still very much a priority for Ross, 34. She is now hoping to get pregnant after the 2017 season, and sit out in 2018.
2018 is the only year in the upcoming quadrennial without a major global championship. World championships will take place in 2017 and 2019, and 2020 is an Olympic year.
“It aligns perfectly that way,” Ross said.
Ross and Walsh Jennings are competing at the season-opening Fort Lauderdale Major on the FIVB World Tour this week. The most notable difference is that they switched sides, with Walsh Jennings now playing on the left.
“If you keep doing the same thing, you are going to keep getting the same results,” Walsh Jennings said. “We had an amazing year last year, but we always want more and better from ourselves.”
Their short-term focus is on the world championships, which begin July 28 in Vienna, Austria. Ross was the world champion in 2009 with Jennifer Kessy; Walsh Jennings won the 2003, 2005 and 2007 titles with Misty May-Treanor. But they’ve been shut out, separately and then together, since.
“It’s the biggest event of the year,” Walsh Jennings said. “That is goal for the year, but we want to win a lot before that, and a lot after that.”
Their long-term focus is on the 2020 Olympics. Both reiterated that they are committed to attempting to qualify for the Tokyo Games.
Walsh Jennings, who is trying for a sixth Olympics at age 41, believes 2020 will be her final season.
“In my head, I’m thinking I’ve got four years, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it,” Walsh Jennings said. “And if that changes, it changes, and if it doesn’t, yay.”
Besides Ross and Walsh Jennings, none of the other U.S. teams are established. Lauren Fendrick and Brooke Sweat, the other U.S. pair at the Rio Games, split this offseason. Of the eight other U.S. women in the Fort Lauderdale Major main draw, half are 24 years old or younger.
But Walsh Jennings will not spend this season scouting potential partners for 2018.
“If I start doing that, I’ll be in trouble with April, because I need to focus on us,” Walsh Jennings said. “And things change. Things obviously changed for her this year, and she decided to come back.
“I’m going to take things as they come. I know that whatever happens, I’ll make the best of it, and I’ll have great options.”
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