UAE suffers home loss at AVC Continental Beach Volleyball Tournament
The AVC Continental Men’s Beach Volleyball Western Zonal Tournament is underway in United Arab Emirates (UAE) from November 19 to 21. The beautiful beach in Ajman welcomed 12 teams from six countries including Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, and Qatar.
Teams are vying for tickets to the next stage of the Continental Cup in New Zealand, coming up in 2012. The current competition involves teams from the Western Zone. On the whole, there are 41 zones from different parts of Asia and Oceania in the competition.
Top three teams from the Western Zone Tournament will qualify for the Continental Beach Volleyball Championship scheduled in New Zealand next year.
The host nation UAE is playing with four teams in the zonal tournament. Despite having a great competitive edge of playing at home, the native duos failed to give what the local audience wanted. Tandems from UAE crossed paths with strong rivals from Bahrain.
The two sides contested their skills and game-tactics in four matches but the hosts dropped all four matches.
First match
Opening match was played between UAE 1 and Bahrain 2. The home duo was comprised of Ahmed Hassan and Abdalla Obaid, while Marhoonn Hassan and Hassan Aqeel represented Bahrain 2. Match was opened with a balanced action from both sides but soon the visitors
took over the game. They attacked with great precision and restricted home side to a low score. Excellent digging and diving of Bahrain 2 made it quite difficult for UAE 1 to win the match. Visiting tandem sent 21-15, 21-14 on board and closed off the match
in consecutive sets.
Second match
In the next fixture, Khlid Hamza and Mohammad Salem of UAE 2 tried to make a difference. They put up against Bahrain 1's Marhoon Ali and Ebrahim Ali. The resilient rivals opened the match with heavy strike of volleys and dominated the hosts. UAE 2 proved
to be no match for strong Bahraini team. The guest duo added quick points and sealed first set victory with 21-12. However, the UAE 2 struggled to save the match in second set and built up good fighting score. They managed to steal some points from Bahrain
but still dropped the second set with a narrow margin of three points. Bahrain 1 posted 21-18 and earned the status of winning team, 2-0.
Third match
Later in the day, UAE 1’s Marhoon Ali and Ebrahim Ali dominated UAE 3. The home duo of Ahmed Hassan and Abdalla Obaid mostly stayed behind the attack line and failed to cope with the power of their opponents. They showed no mercy to their opponents and walked
away with 2-0 (21-14, 21-16) victory.
Final fixture
In the final match of day, UAE 4’s Khlid Hamza and Mohammad Salem approached the court. On the other side of the net, Marhoonn Hassan and Hassan Aqeel of Bahrain 2 were ready to give them a hard fight. Hosts slipped the opening set with slight 2-point difference
(19-21) and failed to save the second set either (16-21). Visiting team won the match and added fourth victory to their overall record. Bahrain improved to 4-0 record on the opening day, while UAE suffered 0-4 loss.
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