Katara Beach Volleyball Cup to Conclude on Friday

Doha, March 13 (QNA) -Josue Gaxiola and Jose Rubio on Thursday eliminated four world champions to reach the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 4-Star Katara Beach Volleyball Cup gold medal match. First, they knocked out reigning world champions Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov at the quarterfinal stages with a 2-0 (21-17, 21-15) win, then they followed up by defeating 2015 world champion Bruno Schmidt and 2017 world champion Evandro Goncalves 2-0 (22-20, 22-20). The Katara Beach Volleyball Cup is the first time that the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championships silver medalists have appeared on the World Tour outside their home country. Rubio and Gaxiola are ranked 96th in the world, 92 places below Bruno and Evandro, but they showed no nerves against their illustrious opponents and after they raced onto a seven-zero lead at the start of the second set they held their nerve to win. Bryl and Fijalek came close to gold on the World Tour in 2019 but finished the year with one silver and two bronze. They spent the winter warm-weather training in Tenerife and Sri Lanka but are not getting carried away with their success. The men-only tournament is running from March 9-13 at Katara Cultural Village. It is the second of nine 4-Star events on the 2019-2020 calendar and the winners will leave with 800 ranking points. (QNA)