Alkass Digital
Doha: Qatar’s duo of Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan delivered a stellar performance winning both their matches on the opening day of the Beach Pro Tour Finals 2024 at Aspire Zone yesterday.
With two consecutive victories in Pool A, the former World No.1 pair now occupy the second spot in the Pool A, with two more matches remaining in the preliminary round.
In their first match against the Czech reigning world champions Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner, the Qatari duo fought back after dropping the first set 22-20 as they found their rhythm to claiming the next two sets 21-15 and 15-12.
In their second match in front of the home fans, Younousse and Tijan overturning a first-set deficit to beat Italy’s four-time Olympian, Rio 2016 Games silver medallist Paolo Nicolai and his partner Samuele Cottafava 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 15-9).
The Qatari pair will next take on Paris Olympic silver medallists Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler of Germany at 4:00 PM today in their third pool match, before winding up the pool stage with another blockbuster clash against the world’s number four team and former chart leaders Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot of the Netherlands at 8:00 PM.
The biggest Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event of the year, the 2024 Doha finals sees a really stellar line up 10 of the best teams in the world, and continues until Saturday, December 7.
Meanwhile in women's event, Terese Cannon & Megan Kraft made a solid start to the Doha Finals.
At this rookie appearance for either of the two American players at a Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Finals, they produced two straight-set victories on opening day and were the only women’s team to do so.
Eighth-seeded Cannon & Kraft started their Pool A campaign in the Qatari capital on Wednesday afternoon with an emphatic 2-0 (21-16, 21-10) shutout of fourth-seeded Brazilians Agatha Bednarczuk & Rebecca Cavalcanti. Dominating both in attack and in serving, the two Americans contributed 18 points apiece to the victory.
Cannon & Kraft were just as convincing in their second match, when they hammered out a 2-0 (21-18, 21-10) upset of top-seeded Latvians Tina Graudina & Anastasija Samoilova. Cannon added the block as one of the team’s big weapons in this match, raising five stuffs towards a 19-point match high.
Yesterday’s other two Pool A matches were both pushed to tie-breaker resolutions. First, Tina & Anastasija opened their campaign with a 2-1 (19-21, 22-20, 15-11) comeback against 10th-seeded Italians Valentina Gottardi & Reka Orsi Toth. Orsi Toth was on fire in attack with 21 points and from the serving line with five aces.
Anastasija also spiked 21 points in offence while Tina produced six kill blocks towards their success, facilitated by abundant Italian errors.