Qatar's Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan in action against Gurin Kirill and Aldash Nurdos of Kazakhstan.
Doha, Qatar: Defending champions Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan once again proved they were too good for their opponents at the Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championship as they stormed into the quarter-finals of the continent’s showpiece event yesterday.
The formidable Qatari duo moved a step closer to their fourth Asian title by defeating Gurin Kirill and Aldash Nurdos of Kazakhstan in straight sets in the Round of 16, marking their fourth straight-set win at this year’s championship.
The Kazakh pair failed to apply pressure on the Olympic bronze medalists as Cherif and Ahmed secured the victory with a 21-12, 21-16 score-line at the Beach Sport Base of Pingtan in Fuzhou, China.
They will now face the World No.10 pair of Thomas Hodges and Zachery Schubert from Australia in the semi-finals.
In their third and final Pool match, Cherif and Ahmed had earlier defeated Shiro Faruta and Dylan Hiroki Kurokawa, a Japanese pair, with a dominating score of 21-12, 21-13.
Cherif and Ahmed had won convincingly against Aihemaiti Salamu and Lyu Lin of China (21-17, 21-15) and Iran’s Salemi Bahman and Shokati Sina (21-16, 21-12) in their previous Pool B matches.
Since they first teamed up in 2017, Cherif and Ahmed have had a fine run at the Asian Championships, reaching the last-four stage on every occasion except in the 2018 edition.
Meanwhile, Hodges and Zachery, the duo that stands in the way of the Qatari duo’s path to the semi-finals this time, have risen in the world rankings from 19th to 10th due to their recent success in the Beach Pro Tour Challenge in Jurmala, Latvia, where they emerged as champions.
Since pairing up in 2022, they have won four titles and finished as runners-up in three international events.
Meanwhile, Qatar’s second pair at the Asian Championship, Ibrahim Nassim Abdullah and Zaki Mohamed Ihab, bid farewell to the event after losing their final Pool H match.
They were defeated 2-0 (21-14, 21-10) by Oman’s Ahmed Alhousni and Haitham Alshereiqi, as they concluded the Pool stage with only one win - against Jude Garcia and James Buytrago of the Philippines.
