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28 March 2024

NAS Sports: MRMR-2 crowned volleyball champions

MRMR-2 celebrate their triumpm in the volleyball competition at the 4th Nad Al Sheba Ramadan Sports Tournament held at the NAS Sports Complex on Wednesday. (Supplied)

Published
By Sports Reporter

MRMR-2 defeated Fohood Zabeel to be crowned volleyball champions at the 4th Nad Al Sheba (NAS) Ramadan Sports Tournament held at the NAS Sports Complex on Wednesday.

After losing 2-3 against Quattro Centre in their opening match on June 8, MRMR-2 more than made amends for this slip-up by winning every match after that before Wednesday night’s finale.

MRMR-2 won 3-1 (25-17, 16-25, 25-22, 25-23) against hot favourites Fohood Zabeel, becoming the only team to go all the way in the competition after starting off with a loss on the opening day.

The heroes of the night were the MRMR-2 professional duo of Elvis Contreras and Bahrain’s Nasser Saleh Anan. Both players were in the thick of action throughout the four sets with Elvis Contreras doing well to guard the back of the court while Nasser Saleh Anan did all the damage with his swift spikes at the net.

Saeed Hareb, Secretary General, Dubai Sports Council (DSC) was joined by Tournament Director Hassan Al Mazrouei in handing out the trophies to the teams and individual prizes after the final.

“The key to winning tonight was focus and hunger for this title. We needed to prove to ourselves that we are capable of bouncing back from that defeat on the first night. Our team meetings after every practice session always centered around how badly we wanted to win the title this time,” Nasser Saleh Anan told media later.

“We needed to be disciplined going into the final, especially because we were tired after last night’s semi-finals. But we also knew that we had to maintain our focus and things would work in our favour. We are all so very happy at winning it this time,” he added.

Earlier, Zabeel secured the third place in the competition with a comfortable 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 26-24) win against the Surprise team. Playing for the third day on the trot, the Surprise players struggled on court throughout and never seemed to be in the match at any point of time, barring the third set when they stretched Zabeel to the limit.

But with their professional player from Cameroon Nathan Baian Wounem in full flow topscoring with 18 points, it was difficult to stop Zabeel from clinching the honour of being the third best in the competition.

The padel competition too continued with the top-seeded pairing of Majid Bushagar and Mohammed Al Janahi blanking the young duo of Khalid Al Mutaiwe’i and Khalid Sultan Al Falahi 6-0, 6-0 to become the first pair to enter the semi-finals of the UAE Nationals category.

In another match of the same category, the pairing of Ali Al Qaiwani and Zayed Abbas teamed up to beat Rashid Suwaidan Al Ketbi and Khalid Al Ateyat 6-1, 6-2 and advance to the quarter-finals in the UAE Nationals category. They will now meet the seeded pairing of Mohammed Al Mansouri and Mohammed Ahli next Sunday.

In the Wheelchair basketball competition that is being held at the Dubai Club for Disabled in Al Ghusais, Al Fursan shot down Dubai Ambulance 101-24, while hosts Dubai Club for Disabled ‘B’ got the better of Union Co-Operative 59-43 in the two matches played late on Wednesday.

Results

Volleyball:

(Finals) MRMR-2 bt Fohood Zabeel 3-1 (25-17, 16-25, 25-22, 25-23)

(Third place) Zabeel bt Surprise 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 26-24)

Individual Awards:

Oldest Player of the tournament: Khalid Mahmoud Al Hossaini

Best server: Rashid Ayoub (MRMR-2)

Best libero: Ahmed Abdullah (MRMR-2)

Best setter: Majid Al Thani (MRMR-2)

Best Spiker: Mohammed Khamis (MRMR-2)

Best player of the tournament: Khalid Hamza (Fohood Zabeel)

Best foreign player: Mohammed Chikhi Rhaybah (Algeria)

Padel:

(Men’s Open) Hassan Sharif Al Marzouqi/Saeed Al Marri bt Mohammed Ahli/Abdullah Ahli 6-4, 6-3; German Zunica/Javier Molina bt Ramon Perez Goicoechea/Patrick Chucri 6-0, 6-0

(UAE Nationals) Majid Bushagar/Mohammed Al Janahi bt Khalid Al Mutaiwe’i/Khalid Sultan Al Falahi 6-0, 6-0; Ali Al Qaiwani/Zayed Abbas bt Rashid Suwaidan Al Ketbi/Khalid Al Ateyat 6-1, 6-2.

Wheelchair Basketball:

Al Fursan bt Dubai Ambulance 101-24

Dubai Club for Special Sports ‘B’ bt Union Co-Operative 59-43