Alkass Digital
For the second year in a row, the Aspire Zone will play host to the King of the Court Crown Series Finals from January 11-14 in Doha. The absolute best will be ready to chase the crown with Ahmed Tijan and Cherif Younousse defending their crown.
The field in the men’s tournament is of regal stature. The defending champions Tijan and Younousse – one of the top teams in the world and bronze medal winners of Tokyo 2020 – will start as front-runners. . In 2022, the duo never finished outside of the top-9 in any tournament – winning an elite-16 event, a challenge event and the Asian championships. It all started with the Crown Series Finals of 2021 in January, they’re here to start the season once again on a high.
“It’s going to be a good challenge for us. It’s going to be tough, I don’t know how many top teams will come. We’re looking forward to be 100% and enjoy the lovely format, the atmosphere,” Younousse said.
“You need to be the best server, you need to be the best side-outer. It’s hard for everyone. The most important thing is the serving and side-out. For me, it’s tough to say who will win, the best servers, they will win the event for sure. There’s no tactic, you can’t study anything. Because you don’t have time. You need to get in there and then learn quickly how the teams play. It’s hard to say who is the best team, because in every King of the Court event since it started, there is a different champion. The champion of this event will not be the champions of the next. Everything is changing, it’s hard to say who is the best,” he added.
Secondly, the winners in Utrecht in 2021 and runners-up of the European Finals in Utrecht 2022 David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig will want to better their third place from last year in Doha. Estonian Kusti Nolvak is ready to win another King of the Court medal, he chases the gold with Dmitri Korotkov. Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen will be hoping for another spot on the podium and 2021 Hamburg King Bartosz Losiak has his sights set on a new crown as well.
In the women’s, Isabel Schneider, who won last year in Qatar alongside Sandra Ittlinger, is participating with a new Julia Sude. Maria Belen Carro is the Utrecht 2021 champions and she teams up with Angela Lobato and 2022 Hamburg winner Pleun Ypma will be giving her all together with Emma Piersma. Anouk Verge-Depre will hunt the crown together with Mania Bentele again, with whom she reached the final in Utrecht this season.