Jefferson Santos Pereira and Cherif Younnouse could recover from a poor start and lost the first knock-out match at the Qatar Open FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Tournament at the Qatar Beach Volleyball Academy in straight games on Wednesday.
The Qatari lead pair was rattled in the beginning by Peter Eglseer and Daniel Müllner, an Austrian pair which came through the country quota qualifiers, were beaten by 17-21 17-21.
Assam Mahmoud and Ahmed Tijan, playing the knock-out stage first time, were outplayed by Belgians Dries Koekelkoren and Tom van Walle by 15-21 15-21 in 31 minutes.
After the group stage, the last finishing pair bowed out of the competiton. The leading teams from each of the eight groups moved to the second round, where they will clash with the winners of the first round, played between the teams which finished second and third in the pool.
While Mahmoud and Tijan could not trouble the opponents, Pereira and Younnouse rallied back and came within a point of levelling the scores at 16-17. Later, Mullner collected two points and produced a fine drop to close out the first set.
In the second, the two teams went neck and neck till 7-7. The Austrians picked five points in a row piled the pressure on the local players again. They did manage to narrow down the margin. Both Mullner and Eglseer were on a charge and at 19-17, they reeled off two points through the former to end the Qatari challenge in 31 minutes.
Earlier in the day, the Qatari teams, especially Assam Mahmoud and Ahmed Tijan, reversed the losing trend and clinched crucial victories to make it to the knock-out.
Mahmoud and Tijan, who have been playing together for barely two-three
months, teamed up brilliantly to get past Austrian Alexander Huber and Robin Seidl by 21-18 23-21 in 37 minutes.
The second set was quite difficult but the Qatari pair was determined and charged up. They controlled the game during the closing stages and won it to qualify from the group stage of World Open Tour event. Tijan had figured in the Doha Open last year and this is his third Open tournament, while this was the second one for Mahmoud.
Mahmoud and Tijan were both excited and complimented each other for making the knock-out stage possible. “After losing the first two matches in the pool, we’re a bit disappointed and under a great deal of pressure. But we decided to go all out and push the rivals today,” commented Mahmoud.
“After we won the opening set, we tried to exert more pressure on the Austrians in the second, which was quite close. We were however quite compact during the extra points and we’re really pleased and prouto d to win and book a place in the first round,” added Mahmoud.
“We needed to win by 2-0 and thanks God, we did exactly that. Now in the first round, we’re confident, will treat each match as the final and try to do our best,” said Mahmoud.
Tijan said, “We’re delighted to advance to the next round. We’d not thought about it after losing two matches in the pool. Mahmoud is a superb and easy-going player. He supported me and together, we pulled through.”
Tijan also added, “This is our second tournament on the World Tour together. We feel we can do better in the future.”
Jefferson Santos Pereira and Cherif Younnouse, as expected, amended the mistakes that they made in the previous matches. Both backed up each other well with diving returns and fine net play against Norway’s Kvamsdal Morten and Christian Sandlie Sørum, before sealing a 21-12 21-16 victory in just 31 minutes.
In the second set, Morten and Sorum twice reached within two points of drawing level. However, Pereira and Younnouse, who reached the quarter-finals of the worlds this year to underline their potential, secured the match point when Morten served out. Then, Younnouse blocked Sorum out to clinch the match.
This victory pushed the Qatari pair to the second spot in the pool behind Polish team of Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak.
Senior partner Pereira said, “We made lots of errors in the first two matches and could not fix them, especially in the second match. But we’re improved and won the match so easily to reach the first round. It was really a bad day.
“If we can play the way we play today, we can win not only the first round clash but move higher in the tournament also. Now, we’ve to just play our normal game and see what we can achieve,” added Pereira.
Qatari coach Pedro Paulo Costa lauded the Qatar’s second team for the valiant show. “Jefferson and Cherief had a bad day yesterday but they could recover. Mahmoud and Tijan really surprised us with the turn-around in the tournament.
“The upcoming matches are going to be very difficult and we’ve a lot to improve. We’ll go point by point and match by match. My expectation now is to win the matches in the first round.”
النتائج (round 1)
Jefferson/Cherif QAT [8] lost to Eglseer/Müllner AUT [29] 0-2 (17-21, 17-21) 0:31
Plavins/Regza LAT [7] beat Kosiak/Rudol POL [15] 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 15-7) 0:43
Hordvik/Usken NOR [21] Eithun/Tvinde NOR [24]
Huber/Seidl AUT [17] lost to Krou/Rowlandson FRA [6] 0-2 (12-21, 17-21) 0:31
Koekelkoren/van Walle BEL [13] beat Ahmed Tijan/Mahmoud QAT [32] 2-0 (21-15, 21-15) 0:31
Pedlow/O’Gorman CAN [18] lost to Fañe/Henriquez VEN [12] 0-2 (16-21, 18-21) 0:38
Marco/García ESP [14] lost to Tocs/Finsters LAT [26] 1-2 (12-21, 21-18, 12-15) 0:47
Dearing/May CAN [22] beat Kunert/Dressler AUT [19] 2-0 (21-19, 25-23) 0:40