Younousse and Tijan start strong with two wins

Qatar’s duo of Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan delivered a stellar performance winning both their matches on the opening day of the Beach Pro Tour Finals 2024 at Aspire Zone on Wednesday.With two consecutive victories in Pool A, the former World No 1 pair now occupy the second spot in the Pool A, with two more matches remaining in the preliminary round.In their first match against the reigning world champions Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner of Czech Republic, the Qatari duo fought back after dropping the first set 22-20 as they found their rhythm to claiming the next two sets 21-15 and 15-12.In their second match in front of the home fans, Younousse and Tijan overturning a first-set deficit to beat Italy’s four-time Olympian, Rio 2016 Games silver medallist Paolo Nicolai and his partner Samuele Cottafava 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 15-9).The Qatari pair will next take on Paris Olympic silver medallists Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler of Germany at 4pm on Thursday in their third pool match, before winding up the pool stage with another blockbuster clash against the world’s number four team and former chart leaders Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot of the Netherlands at 8pm. The biggest Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event of the year, the 2024 Doha finals sees a really stellar line up of 10 of the best teams in the world, and continues until Saturday, December 7.In the women’s Terese Cannon & Megan Kraft made a solid start to the Doha Finals, producing two straight-set victories on opening day and were the only women’s team to do so. Eighth-seeded Cannon and Kraft started their Pool A campaign with an emphatic 2-0 (21-16, 21-10) shutout of fourth-seeded Brazilians Agatha Bednarczuk and Rebecca Cavalcanti. Dominating both in attack and in serving, the two Americans contributed 18 points apiece to the victory. Cannon & Kraft were just as convincing in their second match, when they hammered out a 2-0 (21-18, 21-10) upset of top-seeded Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova. Cannon added the block as one of the team’s big weapons in this match, raising five stuffs towards a 19-point match high.The other two Pool A matches were both pushed to tie-breaker resolutions. First, Tina and Anastasija opened their campaign with a 2-1 (19-21, 22-20, 15-11) comeback against 10th-seeded Italians Valentina Gottardi and Reka Orsi Toth. Orsi Toth was on fire in attack with 21 points and from the serving line with five aces. Anastasija also spiked 21 points in offence while Tina produced six kill blocks towards their success, facilitated by abundant Italian errors.Agatha & Rebecca suffered a second defeat on Wednesday, this time at the hands of fifth-seeded Xue Chen & Xia Xinyi of China. Xue’s impenetrable block produced seven kill blocks and her serve delivered four aces, while Xia’s offensive effort achieved a match-high 25 points towards a 2-1 (18-21, 21-14, 15-12) comeback victory.Four different teams came up with one win each in Pool B on Wednesday, while young Spanish Olympians Daniela Alvarez & Tania Moreno conceded two defeats.After a 2-1 (21-16, 18-21, 15-9) battle, third-seeded Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands got back at the Spaniards for the Paris Olympic eighth final defeat. Stam was the best scorer of the match with 22 points.At the same time on centre court, Paris 2024 silver medallists Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson of Canada, seeded ninth, squeezed out a narrow 2-1 (16-21, 21-13, 17-15) comeback against second-seeded Germans Svenja Muller & Cinja Tillmann. Later in the day, the German duo bounced back with a 2-0 (21-18, 21-16) win over seventh-seeded Alvarez & Moreno. In each of the two games, Muller produced a 25-point match high, including four blocks and two aces.