The top two seeds in the men’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Finals in Doha - Qatar’s Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan and Sweden’s David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig – lived up to their status, won their pools and secured their direct tickets to the semifinals. With one leg of pool-play matches left to be played on Friday, everybody else is still in contention for the four quarterfinal spots.
competition/Beach Pro Tour
Unbeaten Ahman & Hellvig and Cherif & Ahmed storm to Doha semifinals
All four quarterfinal vacancies still up for grabs and everybody is still in contention
Published 10:26, 05 Dec 2024
- Watch the Doha Finals on VBTV.
Pool A
To their two wins on Wednesday, Cherif & Ahmed added another two on Thursday and wrapped up their Pool A campaign undefeated, safely on top of the pool standings and into the semifinals. They started their day with a hard-fought 2-1 (16-21, 21-17, 15-13) comeback against Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallists, fifth-seeded Germans Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler. Ehlers was the best scorer of that match with 25 points. Then, the home team squeezed out a tight 2-0 (23-21, 22-20) win over fourth-seeded Stefan Boermans & Yorick de Groot of the Netherlands, with a 22-point match high from Cherif, including six kill blocks.
Cherif/Ahmed vs. Ehlers/Wickler - Pool Play Highlights | Doha Finals 2024 #BeachProTour
Reigning world champions Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner of Czechia put together a 2-0 (21-18, 21-13) win over eighth-seeded Italians Samuele Cottafava & Paolo Nicolai, with Schweiner leading the way with 19 points. Later in the day, however, the Czechs suffered a 2-0 (21-19, 21-17) shutout at the hands of Ehlers & Wickler. Ehlers once again topped the match scorers with 20 points.
With the Germans playing the Italians and the Dutch taking on the Czechs on Friday, all four teams have their shots at the second or the third place which grant advancement to Friday evening’s quarterfinals.
Pool B
Pool B followed a similar scenario to crown Olympic champions Ahman & Hellvig as early pool winners on a 4-0 win-loss record. However, all four of their matches were resolved in tie-breakers. The Swedes came back from a set down in each of the two games they played on Thursday - 2-1 (19-21, 21-4, 15-6) over Matthew Immers & Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands with 10 kill blocks by Hellvig towards a 26-point match high, and 2-1 (15-21, 21-17, 15-8) in the big Scandinavian clash with third-seeded Norwegians Anders Mol & Christian Sorum.
Åhman/Hellvig vs. van de Velde/Immers - Pool Play Highlights | Doha Finals 2024 #BeachProTour
After an epic second set, ninth-seeded English wild cards Joaquin Bello & Javier Bello celebrated a 2-0 (21-16, 35-33) shutout of seventh-seeded Brazilians Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano, but then lost to Immers & Van de Velde, also in straight sets, 2-0 (21-13, 21-17).
This way, all four teams below the first place stand on a 1-2 win-loss record, which gives their last pool matches on Friday an eighthfinal status. The Dutch will take on the Brazilians and the Norwegians will face the English, with the winners of the two games advancing to the quarterfinals.