Doha, Qatar, March 7, 2018 – Anders Mol and Christian Sorum are fast making a name for themselves on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour and the pair certainly enjoyed the opening day of the main draw at the 4-Star KATARA Beach Volleyball Cup where they recorded two wins from two on Wednesday.
First off the Norwegian pair beat Canada’s Grant O’Gorman and Ben Saxton, and then defeated Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo a week on from the Italians winning silver at the 5-Star Fort Lauderdale Major.
The 4-Star KATARA Beach Volleyball Cup runs from March 6-10, and is taking place at the KATARA Cultural Village. It is the fourth time that Doha has hosted an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament, following competitions in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
“It was hard, really hard as they are a good team,” Mol said. “They’ve just come from a second place finish in Fort Lauderdale.
“We just had nothing to lose and put some pressure on them and did some good things out there.”
Mol is 20 and Sorum 22, but they have already packed a great deal into their young careers. They won European U22 gold in 2016 and followed up by winning silver in 2017.
They didn’t hang around after they began their World Tour careers at the 2016 Klagenfurt Major, and won silver at the Espinho 2-Star tournament in 2017.
After enjoying a taste of the podium, and reaching The Hague 4-Star quarterfinals, they are now aiming for more podium finishes in 2018.
“We have set ourselves the goal of being on the podium this year,” Mol said.
“We’ve won some really good matches and last year and in previous seasons we’ve beaten some good teams, but haven’t been consistent enough to be in the semifinals. So a medal would be a huge goal for us this year.”
It was a mixed day for all three Fort Lauderdale medal winning teams, who won their opener but then lost the second that decided who topped the pool and qualified directly to the quarterfinals.
Fort Lauderdale gold medallists Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena beat Qatar’s Benlouaer and Ali Nassir Ahmed, but then lost to fellow Americans Taylor Crabb and Jacob Gibb.
Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins beat Poland’s Kacper Kujawiak and Maciej Rudol, but were unable to make it a Polish double when they lost to Michal Bryl and Grzegorz Fijalek.
For Bryl and Fijalek it completed a good day’s work that began when they beat Maxim Sivolap and Artem Yarzutkin of Russia 2-0 (21-13, 22-20).
“It’s been a perfect day,” Bryl said. “It was really hard because we lost 2-0 to them (Samoilovs and Smedins) in our last tournament, so we really wanted to win this one. They pushed us and we had to push back, that’s the game.”