Cherif and Ahmed enter last 16 of Beach Volleyball World Championships
ROME - Tokyo Olympic bronze medallists Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan were among the first men’s teams to play their second match at the Beach Volleyball World Championships in Rome Monday and the Qataris continue to make a strong impression at the Foro Italico.
After starting their campaign in the Italian capital with a win over Paraguayans Roger Battilana and Gonzalo Melgarejo on Friday, the Qataris displayed an even stronger game to top Americans Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander in straight sets 21-14, 21-15 in their second Pool D match.
The back-to-back victories have ensured the Qataris will be in the Round of 32 of the World Championship.
Tomorrow, they will face French pair Arnaud Gauthier-Rat and Youssef Krou and another victory will grant them the top spot in the Pool.
“We’re playing better every match and that’s our goal,” Cherif said. “It wasn’t an easy match, it was the first time we played them and we didn’t know what to expect. We struggled a little bit at the beginning, but we had the strength to come back and ended the match really well. Our side out was good and our defensive strategy was perfect. Hopefully we can play even better in the next pool match.”
The 27-year-old blocker had a dominant performance at the net against the Americans, producing six blocks, as well as nine kills, for his team. Solid in defence, Ahmed scored 15 points in kills.
Ranked second in the FIVB World Rankings, Cherif and Ahmed are competing together at the World Championship for just the second time in their careers. The two finished 17th in Hamburg, Germany, in 2019.
Also guaranteed a place in the Round of 32 are Brazil’s Andre Loyola/George Wanderley and Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins. The teams share the top spot in Pool E after the Brazilians defeated Austrians Alexander Huber and Christoph Dressler 2-1 (22-20, 21-23, 15-11) and the Latvians downed Iranians Bahman Salemi and Arash Vakili also in three sets (22-24, 21-15, 15-11).
Pool B also has two teams already through in Dutch pair Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, who prevailed over Mexicans Miguel Sarabia and Juan Virgen in straight sets (21-13, 21-15), and Estonians Kusti Nolvak and Mart Tiisaar, who also needed just two sets (21-13, 21-16) to handle Moroccans Mohamed Abicha and Soufiane El Gharouti. The Europeans have two victories each and cannot be caught by their opponents.
Tuesday’s schedule will be lighter, featuring only 12 matches, and tomorrow, the last day of pool play at the Foro Italico, will feature the final 24 matches of the preliminary stage of the tournament.
The tournament sees 48 teams per gender, distributed into 12 round-robin pools of four duos each. At the end of the pool phase, the top two teams in each pool and the best four third-placed pairs will advance to the elimination rounds. The remaining eight teams that rank third in their pools will play a four-match lucky-loser round to complete the 32 teams in the knockout bracket. The entire tournament will feature 216 matches across 10 days of competition.
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