Played before an overflow crowd of 3,000 fans that arrived in the early morning hours to fill the Praia de Iracema centre court, Emanuel and Ricardo avenged an earlier 26-24 and 21-16 defeat to the Americans in the Banco do Brasil Open’s winner’s bracket quarterfinals Friday afternoon.

Dalhausser (Orlando, Fla.) and Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.), who split $22,000 for their second-place Banco do Brasil Open finish, had also defeated the Brazilians in their previous match before this week’s season-ending men’s international Beach Volleyball event by posting a 21-16, 13-21 and 19-17 win in the semifinals at the 2007 SWATCH-FIVB World Championships in Switzerland.

The Brazilians now hold a 5-3 edge over Dalhausser and Rogers as Sunday’s meeting was the third gold-medal match between the two teams. Emanuel and Ricardo defeated the Americans in 2006 finale in Croatia with the Americans upsetting the Brazilians two months later in the Austrian Grand Slam title match.

“It was good to end the international season with gold medal,” said the 34-year Emanuel, who has now teamed with Ricardo to win 30 SWATCH titles since forming their partnership 70 FIVB events ago at the end of the 2002 season. “The Americans are a very competitive team that blends the blocking and hitting of Dalhausser with the excellent defense of Rogers. That match today could be a preview of things to come.”

Emanuel, who was named the SWATCH most outstanding player for the Banco do Brasil Open, was referring to a possible confrontation with the Americans at the 2008 Olympic Games next August in Beijing where he and Ricardo are the top-ranked team on the qualifying list with 5,240 points for their best eight placements this season.

Dalhausser and Rogers are expected to qualify as the top American team after winning the 2007 SWATCH-FIVB World Championships two months ago in Gstaad. The Americans need two more SWATCH placements to reach the minimum number of eight FIVB finishes to qualify for Olympic consideration.

In clinching their fifth-straight SWATCH-FIVB World Tour point’s championship three weeks ago in Poland, Emanuel and Ricardo finished the 2007 season with 6,940 for their best 12 finishes this year. For the third-straight, Marcio Araujo and Fabio Magalhaes placed second to their Brazilian rivals with 6,340 points as the South American country had four of the top five teams on the 2007 SWATCH circuit.

Ricardo was also honored at Sunday as the 2007 SWATCH most outstanding player. Ricardo also won the award in 2005 with Emanuel collecting the SWATCH most outstanding player trophy in 2007. Emanuel finished second this season with three event MOP awards as compared to Ricardo’s four SWATCH trophies.

Brazil now holds a 22-16 win over the United States in men’s SWATCH gold medal matches as the Americans had won the previous two finals, including a win in last October’s 2006 season finale in Mexico when Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal defeated Emanuel and Ricardo for the Acapulco crown.

In the bronze-medal match, third-seeded Marcio Araujo and Fabio Magalhaes of Brazil posted a 21-14 and 21-17 win in 46 minutes over 18th-seeded Martin Laciga and Jan Schnider of Switzerland to share the $16,000 third-place prize. Laciga and Schnider split $12,000.

More information is available on the FIVB beach volleyball web site at www.fivb.org/en/BeachVolleyball/index.asp.