Rio de Janeiro, August 8, 2016 - Spain's Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera look to advance to the elimination stage while Qatar's Jefferson Santos Pereira/Cherif Younousse are looking for their first win in Rio in the last match of the morning session on day three.
Head to Head
Gavira/Herrera won the only previous meeting on the FIVB World Tour 21-17, 19-21 and 19-17 in 54 minutes in a pool play match at the Sochi Open in May, 2016.
Historically the #7 seed has beaten the #19 seed in all four meetings in the Olympic Games. The last three Olympic matches were in pool play with wins by the higher seed, 21-18, 24-22 in London (2012), 21-15, 19-21, 18-16 in Beijing (2008), 21-13, 21-15 in Athens (2004), and a 15-2 win in the second round in Sydney (2000).
Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera, Spain, Seed #7, Pool F, 1-0, 2.000 Set Ratio, 0.9804 Point Ratio, Qualified 7th with 5,500 Points in the 2015-16 Olympic qualification period
• Adrian: September 17, 1987 (28y10m20d), 193 cm (6'4"), 89 kg (198 lbs.), Hometown La Línea de la Concepción, 102nd FIVB World Tour event (ranks 67th), two gold medals, $510,625 career winnings (ranks 32nd)
• Pablo: June 29, 1982 (34y1m8d), 193 cm (6'4"), 88 kg (195 lbs.), Hometown Castellon de la Plana, 145th FIVB World Tour event, (ranks 16th), four gold medals, $661,775 career winnings (ranks 18th)
• Adrian and Pablo have been playing together since 2009. They are playing in their 82nd FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament together (ranks 18th), two gold medals, $949,700 career winnings (ranks 5th). They rank second behind Poland's Fijalek/Prudel (84) for playing the most events together of the men's teams competing at the Rio Olympics.
• Adrian has played in 21 FIVB World Tour final fours with two gold, five silver, eight bronze medals and six 4th place finishes.
• Pablo has played in 25 FIVB World Tour final fours with four gold, five silver, nine bronze medals and seven 4th place finishes.
• Adrian and Pablo have played in five Final Fours in 2015-2016 (Gold Moscow Grand Slam 2015, Bronze Long Beach Grand Slam 2015, Gold Xiamen Open 2016, Bronze Fuzhou Open 2016, 4th Gstaad Major 2016).
• Adrian and Pablo finished 9th in the Olympic Games in 2012 (London).
• Pablo Herrera won the silver medal in the Olympic Games with Javier Bosma in 2004 (Athens) and finished 9th with Raul Mesa in 2008 (Beijing).
• Adrian and Pablo finished 5th in the FIVB World Championships in 2009 (Stavanger), 5th in 2011 (Rome), 5th in 2013 (Stare Jablonki), and 17th in 2015 (The Hague).
• Pablo finished 17th in the FIVB World Championships with Javier Bosma in 2003 (Rio de Janeiro) and 33rd in 2005 (Berlin) and 9th in 2007 (Gstaad), both with Raul Mesa.
• Adrian and Pablo are currently ranked 15th in FIVB World Tour points in 2016 with 3,840 points and 12th in winnings with $106,375.
• Adrian and Pablo have a career 280-149 (65.3%) match record in FIVB World Tour Events and a 71-38 (65.1%) record in 2015-16.
• Adrian and Pablo won the gold medal at the European (CEV) Continental Championships in 2013 (Klagenfurt, Austria) along with three other gold medals and two bronze medals on the CEV Continental Tour from 2009-14.
• Adrian won the silver medal at the U21 World Championships with Alejandro Fernandez in 2007 (Modena, Italy).
• Pablo won the gold medal at the CEV Continental Championships with Raul Mesa in 2005 (Moscow, Russia) along with one other gold medal on the CEV Continental Tour with Javier Bosma in 2004 and one silver medal with Raul Mesa in 2008.
• Pablo won the silver medal at the U21 World Championships in 2001 (Le Lavandou, France) and the gold medal in 2002 (Catania, Italy), both with Raul Mesa.
• Adrian was named the FIVB World Tour Top Rookie in 2008.
• Defeated Alexander Huber / Robin Seidl, Austria (18), 14-21, 21-17, 15-13 in 53 minutes
Jefferson Santos Pereira/Cherif Younousse, Qatar, Seed #19, Pool F, 0-1, 0.000 Set Ratio, 0.7619 Point Ratio, Qualified through Asian Confederation (AVC) Continental Cup
• Jefferson: June 8, 1989 (27y1m29d), 182 cm (6'0"), 87 kg (193 lbs.), Hometown Doha, 22nd FIVB World Tour event, one gold medal, $28,287 career winnings
• Cherif: May 22, 1995 (21y2m15d), 195 cm (6'5"), 76 kg (169 lbs.), Hometown Doha, 14th FIVB World Tour event, one gold medal, $19,700 career winnings
• Jefferson and Cherif have been playing together since 2015. They are playing in their 13th FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament together, one gold medal, $39,400 career winnings. They won Qatar's only FIVB World Tour gold medal.
• Jefferson has played in one FIVB World Tour final four with one gold medal.
• Cherif has played in one FIVB World Tour final four with one gold medal.
• Jefferson and Cherif have played in one Final Four in 2015-2016 (Gold Kish Island 2016).
• Jefferson and Cherif finished 5th in the FIVB World Championships in 2015 (The Hague).
• Jefferson and Cherif are currently ranked 42nd in FIVB World Tour points in 2016 with 1,380 points and 42nd in winnings with $19,800.
• Jefferson and Cherif have a career 20-29 (40.8%) match record in FIVB World Tour Events, all in 2015-16.
• Jefferson and Tiago Santos won the bronze medal at the AVC Continental Championships in 2014 (China) and one gold medal on the AVC Continental Tour in 2014 (Khanom, Thailand).
• Cherif is the youngest men's player competing in the Rio Olympics at 21 years, 2 months of age. He is the second youngest man to participate in Olympic Beach Volleyball competition, Czech Republic's Martin Lebl was 20 years and 5 months at the start of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
• Jefferson and Cherif teamed with Julio Junior/Ahmed Tijan to lead Qatar to its first-ever appearance in the Olympic Beach Volleyball competition by winning the Asian Continental Cup in Cairns, Australia. The Qatar pairs were undefeated in six matches in Cairns with team wins over Iran, Kazakhstan and China. All six of the Qatar matches were three-setters with four of the wins being comeback victories after losing the first set.
• Lost to Jake Gibb / Casey Patterson, United States (6), 16-21 and 16-21 in 35 minutes.