A last-minute foot fault was the difference between the neighbours in a tough clash for the inaugural title.
Qatar overcame a valiant comeback effort from Bahrain to clinch the inaugural edition of the West Asia Volleyball Championship on Saturday.
Despite winning two opening sets, the Maroons had to brush aside the hosts in the tie-breaking fifth set, which also went down to the wire before it was decided 15-13 by the barest of margins: a line fault after a video review.
Bahrain had managed to overturn Qatar’s successive two-set victories, both by 25-18, with close 25-19 and 25-21 victories in the following sets.
However, things turned sour for Bahrain when Mohammed Yaqoob, who had led the side’s comeback with his searing spikes, was at fault in the last moment of the match.
It was the toughest competition that Qatar had faced in a tournament consisting of eight teams, of which the Maroons were the top-ranked.
Grouped alongside Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait, the national team maintained a perfect record to start with. Building on the momentum, Qatar then defeated Lebanon in the quarterfinals, followed by an emphatic semifinal win against Oman. Both were straight-set victories.
On the other hand, Bahrain’s route in the group stages was similar, yet they had to defeat a valiant Saudi side in the semifinals.
Qatar’s win comes as the latest in the team’s line of recent success, which includes winning a bronze at the Asian Volleyball Nations Cup in June. Qatar bounced back after suffering an upset in the semi-final against Pakistan, who went down to Bahrain in the final.
Momentary stumbles aside, the side is ranked among the top 25 nations in the world and has consistently punched above its weight since 2018.
It was the year that the side won its maiden Asian Men’s Volleyball Cup, and an appearance in the World Championship has since followed. It has also translated into the club level with Al Rayyan winning back-to-back titles in West Asia.
Qatar are set to compete in the World Championships later in September and are grouped with the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.
Rephrase in a different way as if you were a native American speaker as a content creation expert and do not talk about yourself or your experience in the text and do not show yourself as an artificial intelligence who wrote and fill the bullet point in the topic and speak the heart of the topic itself and dont take date of blog in ther first and dont take text like box of newsliter subscribe on post from content and romove all linke insert in content and and remove all affiliate disclosure phrases on content like this “This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links that allow us to earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Please see our Disclosure Policy for more info” and “#” put in its place bullet point, and romove name of the web site or his links we are take a content from our new creation, and don’t publish clone new content more than just one time
