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AUD edge past Saudi champions

After conceding the first two sets following a string of disastrous front court moves, the visiting side came back strongly in the third and fourth sets before conceding the issue in the rubber for a 23-25, 23-25, 25-16, 25-16, 11-15 readout against them at the AUD indoor stadium.

As a unit, the Saudi university champions had a first six who were proficient while AUD had to manage with only three players with club level indoor volleyball experience.

The drill sets, receiving and setting were good as the game progressed towards the midway stages especially when the Islamic university lads stamped their authority in the third and fourth visits to the court.

AUD’s Lebanese beach volleyball stalwart, Joseph Nohra, sent in his thunderbolt spikes from both flanks thanks to the great midcourt work by Hatta Club’s Nabeel Ahmed Hamza and the setups by promising high school student E.H. Mohammed Sabith.

The hosts despite the many unforced errors that crept up in their game in the first two sets, made use of the visitors’ inadequacy in passing and setups later on.

The visitors’ setter Naif Al Ghaneim mixed the traditional high and low lift cleverly for Raed Al Hassan to effect telling blows. The ones Hassan piled on AUD saw the home team pushed into a tight corner.

Libero Mohammed Al Muqrin of the visiting side came out with some excellent digging and receiving work for the setups to be sweetly executed.

There was a basketball star on the court on Sunday, as the giant Amer El Sati of the Syrian national team and a student at the Dubai campus, put his part time spiking and blocking skills to good use.

The tremendous almost single handed show by AUD’s sports coordinator Joseph, who still is among the top four beach volleyball spikers in Lebanon made all the difference.

In the decider the scores read 6-3, 7-6 in favour of the Saudis before Joseph inspired Sabith to solid ground work under the net. The AUD setter had problems earlier the game when trying to carry out the subtle, disguised variations for Joseph and Nabeel.

Nabeel made up for the numerous wasted services of the first two games when he came out with five bazooka masterpieces for AUD to jump ahead and sustain leads for 8-7, 14-13 and 15-13 situations in the rubber.

Skill wise the Saudi team had the ingredients to pull off a win but the determined efforts of the home side, spearheaded by the experience of Joseph, Nabeel and Sabith, titled the scales against the visitors.

AUD played without a libero-based formation throughout something they will have to concentrate more on getting used to if they are to wriggle out of tight situations.

They have in coach Muneer Abbouchi, former Lebanon attacker and captain who is also looking after the development of the UAE beach volleyball team, an able hand whose international experience will be of great help.

moni@khaleejtimes.com