Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov and Eduard Reznik will lock horns with American qualifiers Logan Webber and Evan Cory in Tuesday’s first men’s semifinal at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Challenge event in Dubai. In the second, another qualifying team from the United States, Andrew Benesh and Miles Partain will battle it out with Brazil’s Pedro Solberg and Arthur Mariano for the remaining vacancy in the final.

· Watch all matches at the Beach Pro Tour Challenge event in Dubai live on Volleyball TV.

Seeded third in the men’s main draw, Popov and Reznik came out as the highest ranked team to advance to the semifinals. The Ukrainian pair started Monday’s competition program from the round of 18 and delivered a 2-0 (21-14, 21-16) shutout of Australia’s Izac Carracher and Mark Nicolaidis to progress to the last 16. They managed another straight-set victory in the round of 16, upsetting second-seeded Italians Adrian Carambula and Enrico Rossi by 2-0 (21-19, 21-18). At the end of the day, Popov and Reznik mastered yet another sweep, 2-0 (25-23, 21-18), this time in a quarterfinal match against another Australian duo, Zachery Schubert and Thomas Hodges, outplaying them mainly thanks to Reznik’s outstanding blocking, which brought in as many as seven points towards the victory. It will be Popov and Reznik’s second Challenge-level semifinal. They also made the last four at the previous tournament in the Maldives.

“We are very happy! This is the second time we are in the semifinals,” the Ukrainian players told Volleyball World. “We tried very hard and we worked very hard, especially today, when we had to play three games. And we are going to give our best tomorrow. We want to take a medal here. We are very pleased to see fans rooting for us and waving the Ukrainian flag. Their support gives us so much energy.”

Webber and Cory continued their victorious run at Kite Beach, which started in Saturday’s qualifiers and has already led them to Tuesday’s semifinals. In their first playoff match, the 17th-seeded Americans produced a 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) upset of ninth-seeded Argentineans Nicolas Capogrosso and Tomas Capogrosso and that was already an improvement on the ninth place they took at their partnership’s international debut in the Maldives. But they did not stop there. In an all-American quarterfinal, Webber and Cory came back from a set down to claim a 2-1 (16-21, 21-19, 15-13) victory over Taylor Crabb and Paul Lotman and register their sixth consecutive win at the tournament.

Another US pair, 15th-seeded Benesh and Partain followed a similar path from the first qualification round and stayed undefeated through six matches in a row to reach their first Beach Pro Tour semifinal. In Monday’s round of 16, they suffered their first set loss of the tournament after an epic battle against Switzerland’s Quentin Metral and Yves Haussener, but then bounced back to cruise through the next two on the way to a 2-1 (29-31, 21-14, 15-7) victory. In the quarterfinals, Benesh and Partain met another team arising from Saturday’s qualifiers, France’s Calvin Aye and Quincy Aye, and mastered a 2-0 (21-19, 21-14) win.

13th-seeded Brazilians Pedro Solberg and Arthur made the Dubai semifinals after taking a hard-fought 2-1 (19-21, 22-20, 15-11) comeback victory over Portugal’s Joao Pedrosa and Hugo Campos in the round of 16 and a more emphatic 2-0 (21-13, 21-18) clean slate against Italy’s Marco Viscovich and Alex Ranghieri in the quarterfinals. This was the first time the pair consisting of 36-year-old Rio 2016 Olympian Pedro Solberg and his 26-year-old partner progressed to the semifinals of a world-level tournament.

Popov and Reznik will take on Webber and Cory at 11:30 local time (07:30 UTC) on Tuesday morning. Benesh and Partain will face Pedro Solberg and Arthur at 12:30 (08:30).

Dubai 1st Challenge: Schedule and results

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Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Dubai 1st Challenge
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