Qatar’s Ahmed Tijan and Cherif Younousse kept their title defence hopes alive as the duo stormed into the quarter-finals of the 2019 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships in Maoming, China.
Yesterday, second seeds Tijan and Younousse pulled off a one-sided 2-0 (21-12 21-12) win over Kazakhstan’s Dimitriy Yakovlev and Sergey Bogatu to top Pool B.
The reigning champions will now take on China’s Yan Tingyang and Li Jie in the last eight clash today. Tingyang and Jie beat Japan’s Jumpei Ikeda Katsuhiro Shiratori 2-0 (21-17 21-15)  to win the Group G.
Tijan and Younousse, ranked No.8 in the World Tour ranking, had sealed two Asian major titles last year at the Asian Championships in Satun, Thailand and the Asian Games in Indonesia.
Hosts China had all four teams reach the quarters. Top seeds Gao Peng and Li Yang, who captured gold medal at the last month’s Asian Tour Samila Open in Songkhla, Thailand, topped Pool A as expected. 
The Chinese duo survived a sturdy challenge from Paul Burnett and Maximillian Guehrer to edge the tough Australian rivals 2-1 (21-17 18-21 15-13 in exhausting 53 minutes. The Chinese claimed the day’s second win following a comfortable 2-0 (21-12 21-15) triumph against Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Chen-Wei and Wu Shin-Shian in just 27 minutes to secure their quarter-final berth.
Gao Peng and Li Yang will take on Li Zhouxin and Zhou Chaowei in the all-Chinese quarter-final clash. Li and Zhou, who emerged as the Pool H winners after a hard-fought 2-0 (22-20 24-22) win against Japan’s Takumi Takahashi and Yoshiumi Hasegawa, overcame a serious threat from Kazakhstan’s Alexandr Dyachenko and Alexey Sidorenko to stun the gold medallists at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, Korea in hard-fought three-set thriller 2-1 (13-21 24-22 18-16).
Also advancing were Chinese Wu Jiaxin and Ha Likejiang, who are due to challenge Aussies Christopher McHugh and Zachery Schubert in the quarter-finals.