The Asian Games gold winners, Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan are the clear favourites in the men’s competition.
Doha, Qatar: Qatar’s beach volleyball stars Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan will headline the Asian Open Beach Volleyball Tour Doha 2026, which gets underway on Saturday and runs until October 13.
The four-day tournament, to be held in Doha from October 10 to 13, will feature 16 teams in the men’s competition and 11 teams in the women’s competition, with athletes representing Australia, China, Japan, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Indonesia and Qatar.
Cherif and Tijan enter the tournament as the men’s top-ranked pair with 4,660 points, following another highly successful season.
Their latest triumph came at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games in Japan, where they defeated Indonesia 2-1 in the final to secure the gold medal and complete a remarkable hat-trick of Asian Games titles.
The Qatari pair previously won gold at the Jakarta and Palembang 2018 and Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games. Their latest success further underlines their dominance of men’s beach volleyball in Asia.
Cherif and Tijan also captured gold at the Asian Beach Games Sanya 2026 in China in April and were named the best men’s beach volleyball players in Asia for the 2025-26 season.
Qatar will field three teams in the men’s competition. Alongside Team Qatar 1, represented by Cherif and Tijan, Team Qatar 2 features Musa Al-Khair and Muhammad Ihab, while Saif Al-Din Al-Majid and Mahmoud Essam will compete as Team Qatar 3.
Qatar will also have three teams in the women’s competition. Haya Abu Issa and Laila Mohammed will represent Team Qatar 1, while Team Qatar 2 comprises Shaghaf Ismail and Malak Hashem.
Aisha Al-Alawi and Nelly Amr will compete for Team Qatar 3.
Competitions will begin tomorrow with the group stage, followed by the remaining group-stage matches and the round of 16 on Sunday.
The quarter-finals and semi-finals are scheduled for Monday, October 12, before the tournament concludes on Tuesday, October 13. The final day will feature the men’s and women’s third-place matches, followed by the two finals.
The seedings highlight a strong gap between the leading pairs in both draws.
Cherif and Tijan are the clear favourites in the men’s competition, having amassed 4,660 ranking points, almost three times the tally of the second-seeded Australian pair, Oliver Merritt and Jade Walker, on 1,690. Japan’s Takumi Takahashi and Jumpei Ikeda are third with 1,434 points.
In the women’s draw, Japan’s Asami Chiba and Rika Murakami are the top seeds with 3,548 points, ahead of Australia’s Jasmine Fleming and Elizabeth Alchin on 2,942. Japan also occupies the third and fourth positions through Rin Matsumoto and Non Matsumoto (2,864) and Sakura Ito and Miki Ishii (1,970), while Thailand’s Taravadee Naravornrapat and Waraparchayakorn round out the top five with 1,740 points.
