Qatar beat Croatia, Hungary in beach handball
Doha, Qatar: It was a day of thrills and spills and 360 spins for Beach Handball in the premiere of the ANOC World Beach Games Qatar 2019.
Both men and women had a heavy schedule, with two games for each team to play.
In the men's preliminary group A, world champions Brazil delivered two amazing performances. They won their opening game against Oman 2-0 (20-12, 19-12), with pivot Gil Pires leading the way with his spectacular moves. In their second match, they beat the United States 2-0 (22-17, 24-20) despite struggling in the second set.
The ingredient that made that game spicier was the presence of the women's team who cheered for the men from the stands.
USA also lost their first match as well, falling short against Denmark – 2-0 (27-22, 19-14).
Denmark managed to start with two straight wins, getting the “W” with Australia 2-0 (21-20, 23-16).
As for the Aussies? They suffered two huge blows from the Scandinavians, Sweden and Denmark.
In the second group, Qatar emerged victorious in both their matches. The hosts needed the shootout to edge past Croatia 2-1 (16-21, 17-16, 9-6), with Sid Kenaoui netting the final goal with a spin move. And they did it again in their second game. Another shootout against Hungary, another win for them! This time, goalkeeper Rasheed Yusuff stopped two shots from the Hungarians, giving the fans a reason to cheer!
Spain was the other team of the group to start with straight wins. They got them against Tunisia with 2-0 (18-12, 14-12) and then against Uruguay in straight sets – 2-0 (18-14, 20-17).
As for the women, in the preliminary group A, Brazil, considered the team with the best chances of winning the gold medal, showed big sparks of quality. The Brazilians got two easy wins. The first against Argentina with a 2-0 result (20-17, 19-16) and the second against the United States with 2-0 (17-16, 18-6).
Denmark, on paper one of the strong teams of the tournament, dropped two sets and let the victory slipped through their fingers in the game against Argentina – 2-0 (11-10, 19-14).
Moving to preliminary group B, Greece, the reigning World Champions, made their case by beating both China (29-17, 24-12) and Australia (17-16, 22-12) in straight sets.
Spain also got a double, beating Vietnam in the shootout 2-1 (23-18, 18-23, 8-5) and China 2-0 (22-13, 24-16).
Poland snatched a win (v Australia, 2-0) and suffered a surprise loss against Vietnam. The latter won in the shootout after each team picked up a set (20-21, 22-16, 7-4).
Argentina also started with a win and a loss.
The competition resumes on Saturday morning, 12 October. Each team, men and women, have two more games to play in the preliminary round. The session starts at 9 am.
