Tokyo: Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan suffered a straight set defeat at the hands of the Russian Olympic Committee’s Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy in the semifinals of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on Thursday.

The first set of the semifinal duel between the teams of Qatar and the ROC was really tight. Cherif and Ahmed managed to recover from a three-point deficit and work out a two-point lead of their own, but, in the money time, Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy stayed more focused to grab a narrow edge.

After 11-11 in the second set, the Europeans took the lead for good. They kept the pressure on to increase the gap until Stoyanovskiy closed it off at 2-0 (21-19, 21-17) with a monster block.

In the other semifinals match, Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway defeated Latvia’s Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs 2-0 (21-15, 21-16).

The Qatari duo will have their sight now set on the bronze medal as they will take on Plavins and Tocs in third-place match for Saturday.

The two teams have met three times so far with Younousse and Tijan having a 2-1 lead. The Qatari pair won the last match between the two teams in 2019 FIVB Gstaad Major 26-24 21-19.

Source: Qatar Olympic Committee