Canadian beach volleyballers Wilkerson, Humana-Paredes to play for Olympic medal

Canada's Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson defeated Spain's Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno 21-18, 21-18 in women's beach volleyball quarterfinal play at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday.

The victory means the Canadians will play for a medal later in the week at Eiffel Tower Centre Court.

Semifinal play is scheduled for Thursday and medal games are set for Friday.

Canada will next face Switzerland's Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli on Thursday at 11 a.m. ET, with live coverage available on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Olympics app and CBC Gem.

"It was a very back-and-forth match," Humana-Paredes said. "Spain are a young team, and they are feisty and play with a lot of freedom. They had great momentum in this tournament, and we knew they were going to come out strong and we had to be patient defensively."

The Toronto duo reached the final eight with a 2-0 upset win over world No. 2 Americans Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth in the Round of 16 on Monday.

They advanced to the knockout round with a straight sets win in the "lucky loser" round over Barbora Hermannova and Marie-Sara Stochlova of the Czech Republic after finishing third in their group with a 1-2 record.

"Every single team is excellent calibre, so every time it's a difficult game," Wilkerson said. "We have faced a lot of challenges before getting to this, so we are embracing difficult times and have made something so beautiful out of it.

"I am so proud of our team and our resilience and grit and promises we have made to each other to continuously show up."

WATCH | Full replay of Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson's quarterfinal win:

Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes shared fifth place at the Tokyo Games in 2021 with different partners.

Wilkerson teamed with Heather