German sand spikers Lars Fluggen and Markus Bockermann stayed on track for their fourth medals of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour making it to the Qatar Open semi-finals.
The German sailed past Italy’s Alex Ranghieri and Adrian Carambula with ease for a 21-16, 22-20 win at the Qatar Beach Volleyball Academy at Al Gharafa Sports Club here on Thursday. They will meet John Hyden and Tri Bourne of USA in the semis, who defeated Venezuela’s Jackson Henriquez and Jesus Villafane 21-19, 21-18 in their quarter-final clash.
The second semi-final will be played between another USA pair of Nick Lucena & Phil Dalhausser and France’s Youssef Krou and Edouard Rowlandson on Friday.
Lucena and Dalhausser defeated Turkey’s Volkan Gogtepe and Murat Giginoglu 21-15, 20-22, 15-10, while Krou and Rowlandson beat Norway’s Oivind Hordvik and Bjarte Usken 29-27, 21-15.
“It was a big fight against Ranghieri and Carambula and feels good to defeat them,” Bockermann said.
“We always have really tight games against them, but we have won the last four games. So now we can look forward to the semi-final.”
Bockermann and Fluggen have made a breakthrough this year by finishing on the podium at three World Tour events this year.
They started the year in spectacular style by winning gold at the Fuzhou Open and then won silvers at the Rio de Janeiro and Xiamen Opens.
“We’re looking forward to the final, ,” Fluggen said.”We had a pretty good run the last two months. Two weeks ago in Turkey we finished ninth and now semi-final, it feels awesome.”
Earlier, Hyden and Bourne overcame their recent quarterfinal curse reach ing their first semis of 2015. The pair enjoyed their biggest success in 2014 when they won gold at the Berlin Grand Slam, but since then they had lost in seven quarter-finals before winning here.