Younousse-Tijan duo enters knockout round

Doha: Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan had to dig deep to beat Nico Beeler and Marco Krattiger of Switzerland 21-15, 16-21, 15-10 and book their place in the knockout round of the FIVB World Tour Katara Beach Volleyball Cup on Wednesday.

Younousse and Tijan were staring at elimination after losing to Ryan Doherty and William Allen 18-21, 21-17, 15-8 in their opening match, but they came back strongly to beat the Swiss pair and progress as the third team from Pool H.

While Doherty and Allen won the group to directly book their place in the last 16, Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands finished second and, like the Qataris, will have to play another round for a pre-quarterfinal berth.

Younousse and Tijan will take on Canada’s Sam Pedlow and Sam Schachter in the knockout round on Thursday morning with the winners taking on Norway’s Anders Berntsen Mol and Christian Sandlie Sorum later in the day.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s other two teams failed to progress after losing both their group matches.

Benlouaer Ziad Ziad and Ahmed Nassir lost to US No.1 seeds Philip Dalhausser and Nicholas Lucena 13-21, 15-21 in their opening match before going down to Dries Koekelkoren and Tom Van Walle of Belgium 8-21, 9-21.

Julio Cesar Do Nascimento Junior and Jefferson Santos Pereira, seeded 22 lost to Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs of Latvia 16-21, 14-21 in a Pool F match.

The Qatari duo fared a lot better in their next match against Brazilians Saymon Barbosa Santos and Alvaro Morais Filho but could not stop the 12th seeds from winning 21-9, 27-29, 15-10.