Qatari beach volleyball stars Cherif Younousse and Ahmed
Tijan will be looking to bag their third FIVB World Tour bronze medal as they
clash with Italian giant-killers Enrico Rossi and Adrian Carambula in the
Four-Star Xiamen Open third-place playoff on Sunday.
Earlier at the Guanyinshan Beach, Younousse and Tijan, who
won the third place in the Katara Open in Doha and the Vienna Major last season
after forming the team, were on the way to their first final after winning two
matches in the day.
The seventh seeds first disposed of sixth seeds Polish Piotr
Kantor and Bartosz Losiak 21-17, 24-22 in 43 minutes. They followed it up with
a big comeback victory over third seeds Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins
from Latvia (3) 17-21, 21-18, 15-12.
Then pitted for a spot in the final against fifth-seeded
Spaniards Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira, the 2016 champions, the Qatari duo
made some costly errors due to strong winds and lost the match and the
opportunity with 17-21, 17-21 defeat.
It was really a topsy-turvy day for the major seeds. After
the third eliminator, top three seeds had been forced out of the tournament.
Rossi and Carambula are also in good form, having accounted
for 16th seeds from Germany Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler in three absorbing
sets in the pre-quarter-finals. Then they shocked second seeds Michal Bryl and
Grzegorz Fijalek of Poland 19-21, 21-19, 15-7 before reaching the semi-finals.
Just like the Qatari team, the Italians fumbled against
Russians Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov, the fourth seeds, and
were beaten 14-21, 19-21.
“The match against Norway was great because, I think the
past three times we met them, we lost easily. The first set today was like
always, but we changed it up in the second and third and finally we won,” said
Herrera.
“In the beginning it was very tough because we’ve already
played two games today. We started fighting and I felt very good on the
side-out, Gavira was pushing in the service. I think we were maybe 100% in the
side-out, we played perfect and now we’ll see tomorrow if we have the same
feeling,” said Herrera.
“Three years ago Xiamen was perfect for us, we won the gold
medal, we will try again tomorrow. It was a long day with three matches so now
we need to rest and tomorrow we will fight with everything,” said Gavira.