Doha: Russia’s Ruslan Bykanov and Serguei Prokopiev had been receiving plenty of support from back home en route to the Doha Open semi-finals — their career-best finish at any FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event.
Yesterday, they reached the quarter-finals by first defeating USA’s Derek Olson and Stafford Slick 2-0 (21-12, 21-13) and then overcoming Austria’s Peter Eglseer and Daniel Mullner 2-0 (21-13, 21-14).
“We can’t understand what we have done in this tournament,” Bykanov said. “It is our first time as a team and we are new partners. Everyone has been watching and supporting us on the Internet because they can’t be here to cheer for us in Qatar.”
The pair is playing in their first tournament together as a team after their coaches decided to try them out ahead of the 2015 season.
This has proved tricky at times for St Petersburg native Bykanov and Prokopiev, who lives in Moscow. However, they have overcome their lack of practice together to put in an impressive run in Doha.
“We haven’t trained much for this tournament,” Bykanov said. “In fact we have trained apart in our home towns because the season had finished. We can’t get our heads around what we have done. But we are playing well together, especially here in Doha.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s young guns continued their dream run.
Tim Holler and Jonas Schroder kept up their impressive performances at their first World Tour event to join Bykanov and Prokopiev in the semi-finals.
First the Germans defeated Poland’s Maciej Kosiak and Michal Bryl 2-0 (23-21, 21-17) and then followed up with another 2-0 (22-20, 21-14) win, this time over Yannick Salvetti and Jean-Baptiste Daguerre of France.
“It is our first main draw on the World Tour and we are so happy with the results because we know the French guys play pretty well in the wind. We are also not used to playing under floodlights but we adjusted well,” Holler said.
“The first set and the second set was better. We played them in Antalya in Turkey and it was pretty windy and they knew how to play the ball. We knew it would be a tough game, but we managed it well and won,” he said.
The pair won their World Universities Beach Volleyball World Championships earlier in the year and have now made their mark on the World Tour in only their second Tour event.
“Our plan didn’t go as far as the semi-final,” Schroder said.
“We just thought about one match after the other. We had a really good day today and very, very happy to be in the semi-finals.”
Both the semi-finals will be played today morning while the third place match and final will be held in the evening.
Doha is making its debut as a World Tour venue. Previously, it hosted beach volleyball as part of the Doha 2006 Asian Games. The World Tour is made up of 10 Grand Slam tournaments and eight Opens.
The Qatar Volleyball Association (QVA) has already shown their intention to host the double-gender FIVB Grand Slam.
THE PENINSULA
