Doha, Qatar, March 9 , 2019 – Teams arrived at the Katara Cultural Village to the north of Qatar’s capital for intensive training in their final preparation for the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 4-Star Katara Open, which is set for March 12 to 16.
For the fifth time since November 2014, Qatar will host an international tournament for men as the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour returns to Doha with European teams seeking to continue their gold medal dominance.
To ensure their bright prospect in the top-notch tournament, some of the beach volleyball players in the world arrived in Doha earlier for their training stints ahead of the competitive competition. The qualification round will take place on March 12 with 32 teams single elimination to qualify 8 teams to the March 13-16 main draw, where 32 teams modified pool play followed by single elimination.
Among teams arriving earlier included Canada, who have been undergoing their training from March 4 to 12, while team players from Poland, Brazil, Italy, Switzerland and Norway started their training period on March 6 and their encampment will come to conclusion on March 12 when the qualification round will be held that day.
Pairs from Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have topped the previous four Doha podiums, with lDutchmen Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, the bronze medal finishers at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the 2013 FIVB world champions, capturing the 2018 Qatar gold.
After Germans Tim Holler/Jonas Schroder won the inaugural Doha event in November 2014, the Rio 2016 Olympic pairs of Markus Bockermann/Lars Fluggen of Germany (November 2015) and Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri of Italy (April 2016) captured the next two Qatar titles.
Fluggen (Nils Ehlers), Carambula (Enrico Rossi) and Ranghieri (Marco Caminati) are expected to compete in the 2019 Doha Open. A total of 34 Olympians have entered this year’s event at the Katara Cultural Village, including three teams from the Rio 2016 Summer Games – Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins of Latvia, Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak of Poland and Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera of Spain.
Brazilian Olympic gold medal winners Alison Cerutti (Andre Loyola), Ricardo Santos (Alvaro Filho) and Bruno Oscar Schmidt (Pedro Solberg) are also scheduled to compete in the 2019 Doha Open. Alison and Bruno captured the 2016 Rio Olympic gold medal while Ricardo topped the Athens 2004 Olympic podium with Emanuel Rego.
Qatar’s Cherif Samba/Ahmed Tijan, currently ninth on the FIVB World Tour ranking list, posted the host country’s best finish in the Doha Opens with a 2018 third after defeating American Olympians Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena in the bronze medal match. Samba placed ninth in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games with Jefferson Santos Pereira.
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