The only players to compete at home at the 2023 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Finals, Qatari stars Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan boosted their fans’ confidence with a strong start at the event held in Doha on Wednesday.

With back-to-back victories at the Aspire Park, the Tokyo Olympic medalists were one of three men’s duos to produce a perfect record on the opening day of the tournament that reunites the top ten teams of the season in their home sand.

· Watch the Beach Pro Tour Doha Finals live on VBTV.

Trying to return to the podium at the international level for the first time since they took silver at the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Ostrava, back in June, the Qatari topped a pair of European duos in Pool A as the Finals kicked off in Doha.

The day didn’t start well for the Qatari, but they recovered from a first-set loss to come back and beat Poles Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak in the tie-breaker (14-21, 22-20, 16-14) in their opening match. Later, they returned to the sand and secured a two-set (21-19, 21-19) win over Italians Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava.

On Thursday, the Tokyo Olympic bronze medalists will complete their pool play schedule, battling Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner at 15:00 local time (12:00 GMT) and Americans Miles Partain and Andy Benesh five hours later.

The reigning world champions, Perusic and Schweiner dropped their first match in the event, falling to Nicolai and Cottafava in straight sets (21-18, 22-20), but rebounded with a three-set (26-24, 17-21, 15-12) victory over Partain and Benesh.

VW Beach Pro Tour Doha Finals: full match schedule

Norwegians and Swedish perfect in Pool B

The teams that occupy the top two spots in the FIVB World Rankings, Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum and Sweden’s David Åhman/Jonatan Hellvig displayed power in Pool B, winning their two matches of the day.

The Beach Volley Vikings, who are the defending Beach Pro Tour champions, had to play two tie-breakers to celebrate victories, downing Brazilians Andre Loyola and George Wanderley 21-14, 19-21, 15-9 and Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler 16-21, 21-18, 15-12.

Åhman and Hellvig, who are competing in the event for the first time, had a less eventful day, overcoming both Ehlers/Wickler (22-20, 21-19) and Italy’s Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri (21-18, 21-14) in two-setters.

The ten participating duos are split into two pools and will each play four matches. The two pool winners will advance directly to the semifinals, while the second and third-best-placed tandems in each group will move forward to the quarterfinals.

Pool play continues for the women on Thursday, when eight more matches will be played in Doha. The opening stage of the tournament will be concluded on Friday, when the quarterfinal matches will also be played.

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