Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan added another 800 points to their FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking record after winning gold at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Maldives Challenge event on Sunday. With a new total of 6,430 points, the former number one team rose up a spot from last week’s number seven to number six in this week’s chart.
Beach Pro Tour 2022
Cherif & Ahmed move up to number six
Lahti and Ahtiainen rise to number 37 in the World Ranking
Published 04:45, 18 Oct 2022
Cherif & Ahmed celebrate in the Maldives
The Qatari pair surpassed previous number six Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava of Italy by 250 points and are now just 50 points below number five Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner of Czechia. This is the first time the Qatari pair are this high up in the ranking since mid-August, when they dropped from the fourth place.
Maldives runners-up Chase Budinger and Troy Field ascended by as many as 20 positions. Adding 760 points to their tally, the American duo are now up to number 47 on a total of 2,460 points, while bronze medallists David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden moved up from 29th to 20th on a new total of 4,340 points. Fourth-placed Sergiy Popov and Eduard Reznik of Ukraine fell just short of making it into the top 40, rising from number 46 to number 41.
Meanwhile, the Czech Republic's Jakub Sepka and Tomas Semerad, the highest ranked team of the four that finished fifth in the men’s tournament, made it to the top 40. They shifted from number 41 to number 38. For Italy’s Marco Viscovich and Alex Ranghieri it was only the second ranking tournament as a pair. They added 600 points to the 216 they earned a week earlier at a WEVZA zonal event and rocketed 223 spots up from 347th to 124th. Both of the remaining quarterfinalists were Beach Pro Tour first-timers. The newly formed partnerships of Brazil’s Evandro Oliveira and Vinicius Freitas and USA’s Miles Partain and Andrew Benesh entered the World Ranking straight into position 155 on 600 points each.
In the women's tournament in the Maldives, Taru Lahti-Liukkonen and Niina Ahtiainen, who achieved a historic success for Finland by topping the podium at Sun Island, climbed nine positions up the women’s ranking to 37th place on a total of 3,290 points, three spots better than their previous high, the 40th position they had back in July after finishing ninth at the Gstaad Elite16.
Silver medallists Katharina Schutzenhofer and Lena Plesiutschnig, who also celebrated their best Beach Pro Tour finish so far, rose three positions to number 34, however, still far from the 10th place they held in early May. The debut appearance of the other Finish duo in the Maldives main draw, Anniina Parkkinen and Sara Sinisalo, proved highly successful as they claimed the bronze, enough to enter the World Ranking straight into position 133. Fourth-placed Emily Stockman and Megan Kraft of the United States ascended from number 38 to number 30.
Among the remaining women’s quarterfinalists, Poland’s Jagoda Gruszczynska and Aleksandra Wachowicz achieved the highest jump of 32 positions, from 106th to 74th. Thailand’s Worapeerachayakorn Kongphopsarutawadee and Taravadee Naraphornrapat improved by six positions, from 29th to 23rd, USA’s Corinne Quiggle and Sarah Schermerhorn improved by three, from 28th to 25th, and Japan’s Akiko Hasegawa and Yurika Sakaguchi by a single spot, from number 40 to number 39.
