Hosts Qatar dominated the GCC Beach Volleyball Championship and as per their strategy, they managed to have all their three teams placed in the semi-finals.
At the Qatar Beach Volleyball Academy courts in Al Gharafa Club on Thursday, young players of Qatar A – Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan – put together a superb show to grind out two more wins with and finished as number one in the Pool B with four triumphs.
Younousse and Tijan battled superbly in both the matches which went down to the wire. They began today’s proceedings with 2-1 victory over Saudi Arabia A. Later in the day, they went on to beat senior teammates Jefferson Pereira and Mahmoud Essam to go to the top of the group.
Pereira had paired up with Tiago Santos and they had won both the GCC title and Arab Championship title together last year. But an injury to Santos during the Qatar Open last month forced him to stop playing.
With Pereira and Essam reserving their best for the semi-finals and not going all out, Younousse and Tijan took advantage of it and split the first two sets, clinching the opening one at 17 and losing the next one at 18.
In the resultant tie-break set, both the pairs went following each other hotly till 8-8. Younousse and Tijan then opened a two-point gap and progressed to lead 13-10. Tijan’s service went out and Qatar A inched one point closer. Tijan then produced a drop to set up the match point.
Pereira’s well-crafted return caught both Younousse and Tijan leaden-footed. The suspense was ended with Younousse drilling a smash into the middle of Qatar’s A court.
Younousse commented after the victory: “It’s really good for us to top the pool after beating all the teams in our pool. Our win over the Oman team was fantastic. Both the matches were quite strong and we tried to give it our more than 100 percent, which helped us reach the semi-finals of this regional championship.
“We had a tough match against the Saudi team today. We could have won 2-0. We’re not much experienced compared to other teams. We’ll try to continue to play as well as we can,” added the left-handed Younousse.
The win by Qatar D earlier meant they would play teammates Abdelaziz Khallouf and Tamer Abdelrasoul of Qatar B in one semi-final and other semi-final would pitch Hassan Aqeel and Ali Marhoun of Bahrain A against Qatar’s tough pair of Jefferson and Essam.
The Bahrainis had however different ideas and they lost to Oman B 0-2 to finish second in the Group B behind Qatar B.
According to the changed scenario, Qatar B would now take on Qatar A in one semi-final, while Bahrain A take on Qatar D in the other.
Qatar B’s Khallouf and Abdelrasoul, who had dropped a match to Bahrain A, clinched both the games in the Group B. Later, Bahrain’s 1-1 win-loss record today enabled Khallouf and Abdelrasoul to top the pool.
Khallouf was glad that his team overcame the defeat of Wednesday and posted two wins before making it to the last four stage. He said, “It’s really great that all the three Qatari teams are in the semi-finals. We’ll try to sweep all the three medals.”
Qatar’s Brazilian coach Pedro Paulo Costa said of his teams: “Yes, I’m very happy. The entire camp is very happy. Our first target was to have all the three teams in the semi-finals. We have achieved it. The second target is now to win all the three medals.
“Cherif and Tijan put up a good performance till now. In any case, we’ll have two Qatari teams fighting to reach the final and when two Qatari teams are playing, everything becomes different. I hope it will be a very strong match,” added Costa.
النتائج
Qatar D beat Saudi Arabia A 2-1 (21-17 18-21 15-10)
Saudi Arabia B beat Kuwait 2-0 (21-14 21-18)
Oman A beat Saudi Arabia A 2-0 (21-10 21-11)
Bahrain A beat Saudi Arabia B 2-0 (21-16 23-21)
Qatar A beat Bahrain B 2-0 (21-16 21-16)
Qatar B beat Oman B 2-0 (21-15 21-8)
Oman A beat Bahrain B 2-0 (21-16 21-18)
Oman B beat Bahrain A 2-0 (24-22 22-20)
Qatar D beat Qatar A 2-1 (21-17 18-21 15-12)
Qatar B beat Kuwait 2-0 (21-12 21-7)
Friday’s fixtures
9:45 – First semi-final (Qatar A vs Qatar B)
Second semi-final (Qatar D vs Bahrain A)
3:00 – Bronze medal match
4:00 – Gold medal match