beach volleyball

Qatar’s Ziad, Elmajid lose in Aspire Beach Volleyball Cup quarterfinals

Doha, Qatar: Qatar's Benlouaer Ziad and Saifeddine Aziz Elmajid saw their impressive run end in the quarterfinals of the FIVB World Tour Aspire Beach Volleyball Cup in Doha on Thursday.

The Qatari pair lost in straight sets to Russians Petr Bakhnar and Yury Bogatov who moved into the semifinals.

Qualifiers Jedrzej Brozyniak and Piotr Janiak of Poland added another victory to their list of successes to advance to last four along with pairs from Oman and Sweden.

After winning two qualifying matches Tuesday to gain a main draw berth, the 13th-seeded Brozyniak and Janiak improved their Aspire Beach Volleyball Cup record to 5-0 with a 2-1 (11-21, 21-14, 15-6) quarter-final victory in 44 minutes over ninth-seeded qualifiers Masato Kurasaka/Kensuke Shoji of Japan.

Brozyniak and Janiak will meet eighth-seeded David Ahman/Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden in Friday's first semi-final while 10th-seeded Bakhnar/Bogatov challenge third-seeded Nouh Al-Jalbubi/Mazin Alhashmi of Oman in the other opening final four match.

While all four pairs are seeking their first World Tour podium placements, the 17-year old Ahman and 18-year old Hellvig has one FIVB gold medal to their credit by capturing the Buenos Aires Youth Olympics title in October 2018.

While the Polish, Russian and Swedish teams are competing in their first FIVB World Tour semi-finals, Al-Jalbubi and Alhashmi have competed in two final fours with a pair of fourth-place finishes at Oman events in March 2018 at Muscat and August 2019 at Salalah.

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