All set for main draw action in 1 Star beach volleyball

Sports Wednesday 14/March/2018 20:12 PM
By: Times News Service
All set for main draw action in 1 Star beach volleyball

Muscat: After two qualifying rounds played at Millennium Resort Mussanah on Wednesday, the main draw line-up for the Muscat 1 Star men’s event on the 2018 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour is now complete.
While two Sultanate’s squads failed to clear the first qualification hurdle, teams from Denmark, Iran, Italy and Switzerland won two matches each to stay in the competition.
The two local teams who lost in the first round were the duo of Badr Al Rushaidi and Fail Al Subhi and the pair of Nasser Al Jabri and Mohammed Al Jabri.
Badr and Faisal were handed a 21-11, 21-12 defeat by Swiss team of Adrian Heidrich and Mirco Gerson while Al Jadri duo were beaten 21-10, 21-9 by Italians Tiziano Andretta and Andrea Abbiati.
However, as many as local five teams have directly qualified for the main draw.
The Omani teams who will seen in acton on Thursday are Hood AL Jabri-Ameer Al Farsi, Badr Al Subhi-Ibrahim Al Farsi, Ahmed Al Housni-Haitham Al Shereiqi, Nouh Al Jalbubi-Mazin Al Hashmi and Majid Al Shibli-Ali Al Shibli.
Meanwhile, according to news posted on FIVB website, all but one of the 12 qualification matches on the sand courts finished in straight sets. The only losing team that managed to win a set were England’s Harry Jones and Issa Batrane, defeated by Japan’s Keisuke Shimizu and Takashi Tsuchiya in the first round 17-21, 21-13, 15-10 – in a game that lasted one full hour.
In the decisive round, however, the Japanese pair lost to Switzerland’s Quentin Metral and Simon Hagenbuch 21-17, 21-18 and failed to advance. Earlier, the Swiss duo had managed a 21-16, 21-18 win against Austria’s Felix Friedl and Maximilian Trummer.
Two other Swiss teams were successful in the first round, but they could not get past the second. Denmark’s Mads Rosager and Martin Trans Hansen delivered a 22-20, 21-12 shutout of Canada’s Cameron Wheelan and Felipe Humana-Paredes before upsetting the top-seeded team in these qualifications, Switzerland’s Adrian Heidrich and Mirco Gerson 22-20, 21-16.
Iran’s Aghamohammad Salagh and Abolhamed Mirzaali disposed of Italy’s Emanuele Monduzzi and Antonio Basti 21-11, 21-10 win in the first round, and knocked out Switzerland’s Gabriel Kissling and Michiel Zandbergen 21-17, 21-18.
The other Italian team, second-seeded Tiziano Andreatta and Andrea Abbiati, made it to the main draw with a 21-10, 21-9 victory over Oman’s Nasser Al Jabri and Mohammed Al Jabri, followed by a 21-13, 21-14 win against Canada’s William Hoey and Liam Kopp.
Main draw action starts on Thursday with Rahman Raoufi and Bahman Salemiinjehboroun from Iran as the highest ranked duo in the line-up.
Besides five pairs from Oman, three from Iran, two from Switzerland and one each from Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong and Italy make up the 16 teams that will battle it out for the $5,000 of prize money, starting off with modified pool play to be followed by single elimination.