China’s Jia Tian and Jie Wang, the No. 2-ranked team, also won a pair of matches to join May-Treanor (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and Walsh (Santa Clara, Calif.) in Saturday’s semifinals on Karon Beach.

The Phuket Thailand Open semifinal appearance will be the second for both teams as Tian and Wang placed second last season after losing the gold medal match to Chinese rivals Chen Xue and Xi Zhang, who defeated May-Treanor and Walsh. The Americans rebounded from the defeat to capture the bronze medal by beating Nila Ann Hakedal and Ingrid Torlen in the third-place match.

“It has been a long season and we have now played in 24 tournaments since the first of April,” said Walsh after her team’s 21-18, 21-12 win over Turner (Fort Meyers Beach, Fla.) and Wacholder (Laguna Beach, Calif.) in their semifinal- qualifying match. “We still have enough left as we’ll play only one match the next two days in this heat and humidity. We look forward to finishing the season on a high note, but we’ll face two quality teams the next two days.”

With their 17th-straight win against the 13th-seeded Turner and Wacholder, including four on the SWATCH tour, the top-seeded May-Treanor and Walsh will carry a 39-match winning streak into the semifinals, where they are guaranteed to face a team from either Brazil or Germany.

Overall, May-Treanor and Walsh have a 51-1 FIVB record this season. May-Treanor and Walsh have now advanced to 48 SWATCH semi-finals since forming their partnership 55 FIVB events ago in 2001. The pair has 45 international beach volleyball podium placements and is one gold medal short of tying Brazil’s Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede for the most FIVB titles at 31.

Saturday’s play opens with the final two rounds of elimination play as fifth-seeded Talita Antunes and Renata Ribeiro face the 11th-seeded Salgado sisters (Maria Clara and Carolina) in an all-Brazilian contender’s bracket match with the winners facing Germany’s 14th-seeded Rieke Brink-Abeler and Hella Jurich for a semifinal spot opposite of May-Treanor and Walsh.

Fourth-seeded Nicole Branagh (Orinda, Calif.) and Elaine Youngs (El Toro, Calif.) play seventh-seeded Lu Wang and Man Zuo of China in an opening contenders’ bracket match with the victors playing Turner and Wacholder for a semifinal berth opposite of Tian and Wang.

The sixth-seeded U.S. team of Jen Boss (San Juan, Capistrano) and April Ross (Newport Beach, Calif.) were eliminated from the tournament on Friday after they lost to Brink-Abeler and Jurich, 1-2 (21-18, 18-21, 13-15) in the third round and to Wang and Zuo, 1-2 (23-21, 17-21, 18-20) in the contenders’ bracket.

The double-elimination Phuket Thailand Open, the last of 17 women’s events on the 2007 SWATCH-FIVB World Tour, concludes Sunday afternoon with the medal matches. The gold-medal winners will share the $32,000 first-place prize while adding 60 points to their qualifying total for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. May-Treanor and Walsh rank first in Olympic points (5,660) with Tian and Wang tied for second (5,200) with Brazil’s Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca for their best eight finishes on the SWATCH-FIVB World Tour.

More information and photos are available on the FIVB web site at www.fivb.org/EN/BeachVolleyball/index.asp?sm=12.