DOHA - The opening round of the "Elite16" event of the 2023 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour for men and women qualifying for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 kicked off Wednesday at the Aspire Park sports complex and will run till Feb. 5.

The Qatari national team is participating in the tournament with two teams, the first is the duo Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan, and the second is Mahmoud Essam and Abdullah Nassim. Both teams will start their campaign on Thursday (main draw round).

In Wednesday's qualifier, Brazilians Saymon Barbosa and Vinicius Freitas secured the fourth spot in the main draw in the qualifier. A fifth berth was opened with the withdrawal of Czech Olympians Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner, which led to Spanish veterans Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira also moving forward as lucky losers - they lost to Saymon and Vinicius in the second round of the qualifier.

On the women side, Brazil's Talita Antunes/Thamela Coradello and USA's Taryn Kloth/Kristen Nuss were the other two teams to advance. The Americans had a familiar bracket, topping compatriots Toni Rodriguez and Savvy Simo 2-1 in the first round and Megan Kraft and Emily Stockman in two sets in the second.

The Qatari team (1), consisting of the duo Cherif Mahmoud and Ahmed Tijan, was drawn in Group D of the opening round next to the duo Evandro Oliveira Junior and Andre Loyola Stein (Brazil), Ehlers and Wickler (Germany), and a fourth team to be determined after the end of the preliminary first-round matches of the tournament, while the Qatari team (2), consisting of Mahmoud Essam and Abdullah Nassim, was drawn in Group C along with de Groot and Boermans from the Netherlands, Chilean duo Marco and Esteban Grimalt, and a fourth team to be determined from the qualifiers to the main round.

Source: Qatar Olympic Committee