Hosts Qatar did not have a good first day in the main round of the 2014 Qatar Open Beach Volleyball Tournament on Wednesday.
Despite a good crowd present at the Qatar Beach Volleyball Academy in Al Gharafa Club cheering them, all the three local pairs lost their first two matches in the group league.
Qatar’s lead duo of Tiago Santos and Jefferson Santos Pereira were involved in a tight battle with Germans Max Betzien and Niklas Rudolf. Both the sets in the 40-minute match were thrilling and the home players got stuck in the end play, losing 18-21 17-21.
That was a big blow to the Qatar’s No 1 team in the Pool A and they could not stop their slide in the second match against Czech Republic’s Robert Kufa and Jan Dumek. They were outplayed by the Czechs at 12 and 9 in just 29 minutes.
Abdelaziz Khallouf and Tamer Abdulrasoul also suffered two defeats in successive matches. First, they lost to Latvian stars Toms Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs in straight sets in 31 minutes.
Their second defeat in the Pool C came against Tim Holler and Jonas Schroder.
Newcomers and wild card entrants Sultan Asif and Assam Mahmoud faced tough rivals in Canadians Josh Binstock and Sam Schachter, who won the Parana Open three days ago.
The Canadians then went on to post another victory and are on the top of the Pool B. They started with a 21-17, 21-13 victory against Mahmoud and Asif and then followed up with a 21-13, 21-12 win over against Martin Olesen and Peter Dilling Kildegaard Andersen of Denmark.
“We weren’t sure what it would be like playing in the afternoon and evening, but there is a nice breeze,” Binstock said.”We arrived last night and are a little jet-lagged, but it is a good start to the tournament and hopefully we can keep it going.
“We’re feeling pretty good and we want to get as many matches as possible under our belts because we’ve only played six FIVB tournaments together and even though we’re not in our best form we want to see what we’re like when we’re not at our best.”
“We aren’t there yet, but we knew we wouldn’t be at the same level right away,” Binstock added.”We wanted to learn how to win even when we’re not at our best and as we move up the ranks find a way like the best teams do.
“Sao Paolo gave us the confidence that we could beat anyone in world and we went to Rio before both tournaments and when you’re surrounded by that level before a tournament it gives you that confidence. Now we feel we can beat anyone in the world if we play at our best.”
For Qatar, there is still some hope. If any of their teams can pull off a win on Thursday, that pair can advance to the second stage and that may be a good boost to sports fans here.
Australian pair Joshua Court and Damien Schumann picked themselves up after an opening loss to end the day with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-18) victory over Spain’s Christian Garcia and Francisco Alfredo Marco.
The pair needed three match points to win, but eventually sealed the victory with a Court block at the net.
“We haven’t played these guys before and it is our third main draw, so we were a little bit nervous,” Court said.”But we managed to get into it and I got the block timing right, which helps the little man at the back of the court.
“They’re clever, you go early and they will try and out-hang and push a shot over. If you leave a gap they’ll take it and that is what they did, but we managed to cover enough of the court and I got in the way and Damo got the digs to get over the top.”
The Australian pair made it into the main draw after winning their qualifying match yesterday. They then began with a loss to Greece’s Kotsilianos Georgios and Zoupani Nikos, the highest ranked side in the pool, which they responded to with a win over the Spanish duo.
It leaves them needing to beat USA’s William Montgomery and Jeremy Casebeer to ensure their place in the elimination rounds.
“We weren’t really tired from qualifiers, it was tight and we made one or two sideout errors at a crucial time and against a quality side like Greece if you make one or two errors at the wrong time, it is all over,” Schumann said.
“Depending on the other results, if Greece win the pool it all comes down to tomorrow. I think we have to beat the USA to get out of our pool.”