Qatar’s Sammoud and Mahmoud, Youth Olympic champs Aham and Hellvig win in Doha
Doha, Qatar: Teenagers David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig posted a pair of wins for Sweden on Wednesday at the Al Gharrafa Beach Complex over two Japanese teams to capture the Pool A top spot at the Aspire Beach Volleyball Cup.
The reigning Youth Olympic champions after winning the title 13 months ago in Buenos Aires, Ahman and Hellvig will be seeking their first FIVB World Tour final four finish after placing fifth twice last season on home sand in Göteborg and in Oslo.
The 17-year-old Ahman and 18-year-old Hellvig are competing in their seventh FIVB World Tour event with a 9-10 match mark together. In Buenos Aires at the 2018 Youth Olympics, the Swedes rebounded from a first match setback to win seven-straight matches to capture the gold medal.
Qatar’s Mahdi Badreddin Sammoud and Assam Ahmed Mahmoud defeated Hideki Yoshida and Keisuke Shimizu of Japan 21-17, 21-11. They had lost to Poland’s Jedrzej Brozyniak and Piotr Janiak in their first match.
Benlouaer Ziad Ziad and Saifeddine Aziz Elmajid defeated Hitoshi Murakami and Takashi Tsuchiya of Japan after starting with a defeat against Mazin Alhashmi and Nouh Al Jalbubi of Oman.
With 12 teams remaining in the competition, Thursday’s schedule will feature two rounds of elimination matches as the pool winners from Oman, Poland, Russia and Sweden received a bye into the quarterfinals. The semifinals and medal matches will be played Friday where the winning team will collect the US$1,000 first-place prize.
