(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
The Peninsula
Tokyo: Qatar’s World No. 1 beach volleyball pair of Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan cruised into the semi-finals of the Tokyo Games, outplaying Italian counterparts in straight sets at Shiokaze Park, yesterday.
The Asian Games gold winners will take on the reigning world champions Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy of Russian Olympic Committee today for a place in Saturday’s final.
Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo, who occupy the 10th spot in the FIVB Beach Volleyball rankings, struggled to keep up the pace with the Qatari duo in yesterday’s last-eight clash despite a three-point lead early in the first set.
After 8-8, the Qatari team took control of the scoreboard and never let go through the end of the first set of their late-night clash yesterday.
The second set was far more competitive and the Italians even pushed it to overtime.
They denied two Qatar stars match points, but on the third one Cherif killed to stop the clocks at 2-0 (21-17, 23-21).
Following yesterday’s win, a jubilant Cherif stated that he is grateful to be in the semis in Tokyo.
“I’m grateful to be in the semi-final, because it took us maybe six or seven years to build this team. It’s a long process. But we trust the process. For sure, the road is going to be very difficult; there will be some ups and downs. But we didn’t give up and we’re thankful to be here,” said Cherif.
“It was a very tough game mentally. They were playing really well and not giving up. Now we’ll get a good rest, because tomorrow we are going to be here again.”
Their opponents in today’s match, Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy progressed to the semi-finals after a straight-set victory over Germany’s Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler.
The Germans had a slight early lead; then the world champs stepped in front. Thole and Wickler kept the fire burning, but were only able to catch up occasionally without regaining control through the ends of the sets.
At first match point, Stoyanovskiy delivered the winner in an extraordinary manner.
In an attempt to block, he practically set the ball for himself and then hammered it into the opponents’ side to celebrate with a 2-0 (21-16, 21-19) victory.
Four years ago at Rio Games, Cherif and Tijan crashed out of the last 16 stage after losing to Krasilnikov and his then partner Konstantin Semenov.
However, this time in Tokyo, the Qatar side will be looking to take revenge as they target a place in the gold medal match.
MENAFN05082021000063011010ID1102571265
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.