13th-seeded Qataris Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan were the first team to achieve their second victory at the Paris 2024 Olympic beach volleyball event, and they did so with a stunning upset of the number one team in the FIVB World Ranking and the number one seed in the tournament David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden, while also securing advancement to the eighthfinals in the process.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallists mounted a furious comeback from a set down to push the match deep into the overtime of a tie-breaker set and eventually close the game at 2-1 (15-21, 21-19, 20-18) with a serving ace for the match winner. Cherif & Ahmed outplayed the opponents mostly in spiking and serving, but also took advantage of the unforced errors the Swedes made at key moments of the match. Cherif was the best scorer of the match with an impressive 36-point contribution to the victory. His tally included five aces and four kill blocks. Meanwhile, Hellvig raised as many as eight kill blocks to finish with 29 points, but his team suffered their first defeat of the tournament.
“It was a really tough game. They have been playing really well and haven’t lost a single game over the last couple of tournaments, so it was a very challenging game,” Cherif told the FIVB. “We were ready for a long fight, because every single point was going to be very tough. We played very well in the second and the third sets. Even after having a bad start, we never gave up and tried to enjoy every single point and every single action with this amazing crowd. But our job is not finished and we have to go back to work after tomorrow. We’ll try to finish the pool strong and then get back to the big fight, because the knockout rounds are going to be very intense.”
