Both home teams Qatar No. 1 (Jefferson Santos Pereira and Cherif Younnouse), and Qatar No. 2 (Assam Mahmoud and Ahmed Tijan) – put up an encouraging show during the Qatar Open 2015 main round group league. However, it was not enough and they lost two matches each at the Qatar Beach Volleyball Academy in Al Gharafa on Tuesday.
Pereira and Younnouse first lost to Poland’s Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak, going down in three sets by 16-21, 22-20, 14-16 in 49 minutes.
Then the duo lost to Geir Eithun and Lars Fredrik Tvinde of Norway 17-21 17-21 with Eithun being exceptional at the net.
Pereira and Younnouse, who finished fifth in the World Championships in Holland earlier this year, have one more chance to advance. On Wednesday, if they can beat Kvamsdal Morten and Christian Sandlie S’f8rum, another Norwegian pair, they can keep their challenge alive in the event.
Mahmoud and Tijan were pitted against top seeds Phil Dalhausser, the 2008 Olympic Games gold medallist, and Nick Lucena from the USA.
Despite not having much time together, they displayed commendable fighting spirits and lost to the Americans closely at 18 and 19.
Their second match later in the night was against Danish rivals Peter Dilling Kildegaard Andersen and Kristoffer Abell. They shared the first two games with both Mahmoud and Tijan combing well during attack and defence. In the decider, they came within a point of equalising as Tijan managed to drop the ball (13-14).
However, the Danes came through with the last point to record a thrilling win in 54 minutes. Their last match tomorrow is against an Austrian pair and their chances of getting into the next stage look even.
Mahmoud said after the match,”We’ve not been able to practise much together…Maybe just two months. But we tried to give a tough time to the top seeds, which is quite satisfying for us.
“In the second match, we’d a good chance but they went through with their bigger experience of playing as a team.”
He also said about the Qatari No. 1 team,”They also played well. But this is a high-level event and there is not much difference between various teams. We have to try to control our unforced errors and if we can do it, it can help us win tomorrow’s match,” added Mahmoud.
Ingrosso twins return to winning ways
Earlier, Matteo and Paolo Ingrosso put three months away from the court behind them to record two wins from two on the opening day.
The Italian twins last played an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event at the Yokohama Grand Slam in July, where they reached the quarterfinals. Since then they played two CEV events before Paolo’s fingers injuries meant they had to take time off.
They began their return with a 2-1 (21-18, 18-21, 20-18) win over Austria’s Peter Eglseer and Daniel Mullner and then followed up by defeating USA’s Stafford Slick and Mark Edwin Burik 2-0 (21-17, 22-20).
“We’ve started this Qatari adventure well, especially when you consider we haven’t been able to play for the last few months because of Paolo’s injury,” Matteo Ingrosso said.
“We’re finding our rhythm a little at a time and we have to be pleased with how it went in these two matches. We had to work hard and remember the work that we did in training during these past few months.”
Defending champs keep up winning run
The 2014 gold medallists Jonas Schroder and Tim Holler picked up from where they left off a year ago by adding two more victories to their run in Doha.
They defeated Italy’s Marco Caminati and Enrico Rossi 2-0 (21-17, 21-14) in their first match and then followed up with a 2-0 (21-18, 24-22) win over European Games champions Martins Plavins and Haralds Regza.
“The start was ok,” Schroder said.”We both have some little injuries, me with my knee and he has some shoulder injuries. We are glad we won this game, but we are not at 100 per-cent right now.”