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"Today was a good day" to quote a famous rapper. Got up early for our match at 9am vs. Georgia. Felt great in warmups and I really think that translated into the game. Phil was awesome at the service line as well as at the net. I would have to say he set the tone for the match when he came out bombing his jump serve and stuffing down the left sider for Georgia. Once he got hesitant it made my job very easy to run down his shots.

I have been having trouble finding time to keep everyone up to date. I wanted to blog every day but it just seems like there is too much to do to get it all done.

Night matches at Chaoyang Park came to an end Monday, leaving just four teams remaining for each gender. Of the eight teams remaining, only four countries are represented: Brazil boasts three teams left, China two, the U.S. two, and Georgia one.

Well I was totally wrong on how the draw worked! We ended up being the 8th seed and will play Laciga/Schneider from Switzerland. The winner of our match will then play the winner of China and Germany (Klemperer/Koreng).

If Kerri Walsh's birthday was Thursday, why she and partner Misty May-Treanor struggled in the first set of their Friday morning match might make more sense. But she turns 30 today, so the partying hasn't even begun.

It's 5 p.m. on Thursday, and for the past three hours, a steady downpour has fallen on Chaoyang Park. But unlike venues hosting sports such as softball or tennis, there have been no postponements yet.

Surprise, surprise: Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh won again Thursday morning. Another surprise: Another star showed up to get in on the action.

Talk to any elite athlete and they'll tell you preparation is key. So how did Elaine Youngs and Nicole Branagh come into their match Wednesday night against Cuba's Milagros Crespo and Imara Estevez without ever having watched footage of playing them before?

When beach volleyball made its Olympic debut in 1996, Australia's Natalie Cook also made her Olympic debut. Twelve years later, beach volleyball is one of the hottest tickets on the Olympic docket, and Cook is still one of the game's best players.

During the first game of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh's morning match with Mika Saiki and Chiaki Kusuhara of Japan, Walsh appeared to hurt her left hand on a block. Actually, her wedding ring fell off.