Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan began their campaign at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Finals with two successive wins at the Aspire Park yesterday. In their opening Pool A match, the Tokyo Olympics bronze medallists edged past Poland’s Michal Bryl & Bartosz Losiak 14-21, 22-20 16-14 in a thriller. Later, the crowd favourites returned for the evening session to beat Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava 21-19, 21-19. The prestigious event is being held in Doha for the second time in a row. The 10 teams are split into two round-robin pools of five, with the pool winners advancing directly to the semi-finals and the pool runners-up and third-placed teams moving on to the quarter-finals in the six-team single-elimination playoff bracket.