The Aspire Zone in Doha, Qatar was witness to some great upsets in the men’s tournament on Thursday in the King of the Court Finals 2021. We have had to say goodbye to Samoilovs/Pristauz and Brouwer/Stoyanovskiy, both contenders for the crowns going into the competition. In the womens draw we played the first matches and the level has been great from the start, the Queens are ready to reign. The King of the Court Finals are organized by Sportworx in cooperation with Qatar Volleyball Association, Aspire Zone and Attraction for Events.
Men
The biggest surprises might be the two players from Oman, Mazin Alhashmi and Haitham Alshereiqi. They started King of the Court Doha in the qualification tournament battling other countries from the Middle East. They came out on top and earned a spot in today’s Group Stage.
But the surprise wasn’t over, in a pool with Åhman/Hellvig (SWE), Guto/Aye (BRA/FRA) and Brouwer/Stoyanovskiy (NED/RUS) they were never close to being eliminated. In the first round Brouwernovskiy was ousted, in the second round Guto and Aye were sent to the playoffs. Åhman and Hellvig were still in a class of their own, but the Omanis will play in Friday’s semifinals.
The next big upset was the disappearance of Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Moritz Pristauz. Both reached the final in Utrecht. Pristauz even took two second places alongside Marco Krattiger this season. The third team out of competition was the Austrian tandem of Clemens Doppler and Thomas Kunert.
Stefan Boermans/Yorick de Groot and Cherif/Ahmed both took their second golden balls of the competition, they look strong going into the semis.
Find out all results and the line-up for tomorrow’s matches here.
Check out the mens matches through the links below.
Playoff 4th placed teams
Group Stage A
Group Stage B
Group Stage C
Women
Starting the competition with thirteen teams due to covid, we played in two pools of four teams, and one of five. The team ending in fifth place of Group B, Tjasa Kotnik and Martina Williams of Slovenia and Czech Republic, will have another shot in Friday’s playoff for the semifinals. And so do the teams ending in fourth place.
Thursday showed some great form from the Australian/Latvian combo of Phoebe Bell and Anastasija Kravcenoka, the last-minute team-up of Chantal Laboureur and Gerda Grudzinskaite (GER/LTU) and the Americans Sarah Schermerhorn and Corinne Quiggle. All three of them won their group of fierce opposition. They will have a golden ball to use whenever they want to replay a point in de semi finals on Friday.
Check out all of the womens matches below. You can find the line-up here.
Check out the womens matches through the links below.
Group Stage A
Group Stage B
Group Stage C
On Friday we’ll start with the playoffs for the semi finals where one spot can be earned in both the men’s and women’s competition at 15.00 Arabic Standard Time (GMT+3/CET+2). After that we have all four semi finals. Be sure to tune in on YouTube!
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