Rosarito: Qatar's Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan qualified to the final match of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 event in Rosarito, Mexico where they will take on the Dutch duo of Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen. 

The teams arrived in the final through different paths. While the 32-year-old Brouwer and the 34-year-old Meeuwsen remain undefeated after their first five matches in Rosarito, the 26-year-old Cherif and Ahmed have kept themselves in contention for gold despite having lost a pool play match on Friday

The brackets of the elimination round granted the world ranking leaders an opportunity to avenge their pool play setback on Saturday, when they met Bryl and Losiak again in the semifinals. The Qataris didn’t waste the opportunity, booking their places in the gold medal match with a straight-set (21-17, 21-15) victory over the Polish.

“They beat us in pool play because they were playing better and we knew we had to change something and we decided to be more aggressive,” Cherif reflected. “In the semifinals, you either give it all and win or give nothing and go play for bronze, but we certainly didn’t want that. We were down in the first set but recovered with Ahmed’s great defence. We kept that same level during the entire second set and that was the key for us.”