Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan in action during the semi-final against Australia's Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher.
Doha, Qatar: Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan will play for the bronze medal at the 2026 AVC Beach Volleyball Asian Championships after suffering a defeat to Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher in a thrilling semi-final clash yesterday.
The second-seeded Qatari pair, Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medalists comfortably won the first set against the third-seeded Nicolaidis and Carracher, but the Aussie pair produced a determined comeback to win 2-1 (14-21, 24-22, 15-11) after 56 minutes.
The defeat ended Younousse and Tijan’s hopes of claiming the continental title, but they remain in contention for a podium finish.
They will now face China’s top seeds Wu Jiaxin and Zhou Chaowei in today’s third-place match in Shangluo. Nicolaidis and Carracher will meet fellow Australians Thomas Hodges and Ben Hood in today’s gold-medal showdown, with the winners guaranteed a berth in the Los Angeles Olympics.
Earlier yesterday, Younousse and Tijan defeated China’s Yanwei Wang and Hongjun Du in straight sets (21-12, 21-16) to advance to the semis, following a 21-12, 21-13 win over Kazakhstan’s Sergey Bogatu and Kirill Gurin in the round of 16 the day before.
Regardless of the outcome of today’s bronze medal match, Asia’s second-ranked Younousse and Tijan will now turn their attention to the Asian Games in Japan, where they will aim to secure a third consecutive gold medal after winning the title at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang and 2022 Hangzhou editions.
