Kelly Cheng, Sara Hughes, once U.S. beach volleyball’s future, reunite after 4 years apart

It is about that time in the Olympic cycle for beach volleyball players to start forming long-term partnerships with eyes on the Paris Games.

The biggest early development in the U.S. is the reuniting of Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, who at the start of the Tokyo Olympic cycle were the next big thing in American beach volleyball.

Cheng and Hughes, both now 27, are entered together in an international tournament in Australia on Thanksgiving weekend. It would be their first tournament as a team since March 2018.

Their second act began with a recent call from Cheng to Hughes.

“We came together and had a really great conversation,” Hughes said in a phone interview with both players on Monday. “I think Kelly and I both had pull towards each other, and kind of knew that it was just the right time again. And so it was a mutual decision of like, yes, we’re getting together, and we’re just really excited.”

Cheng (née Claes) and Hughes won NCAA beach volleyball titles with USC in 2016 and 2017. In between, they were the only pair to take a set off Olympic gold medalists Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross in AVP play leading up to the Rio Games.

Their bond was so strong that Hughes turned down Walsh Jennings’ proposal to partner up in 2017 before Tokyo Olympic qualifying began.

But in 2018, Hughes did pair with Summer Ross for a Tokyo Olympic run (which ended after Ross suffered a 2019 back injury). Cheng then teamed with Sarah Sponcil, caught fire to take the last U.S. Olympic spot over Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat and lost in the round of 16 at their first Games.

“It was a lot of the unknown and being young and kind of immature and listening to maybe outside forces and not really knowing how to deal with things as well,”