Qatar's leading pair are ranked ninth for the four-star Katara Beach Open tournament that runs until Saturday (March 16) and is taking place at the Katara Cultural Village for the second year in a row.

It will be the fifth time that the Qatari capital has hosted a World Tour event since it first played host in 2014.

In 2018 Cherif and Ahmed won their first World Tour medal with bronze.

Later in 2018 they won bronze at the Vienna five-star and gold at the Asian Beach Volleyball Championships.

Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena are seeded first in Doha and while the Americans finished outside the medals with fourth place in 2018, they have good memories of competing at the event having won silver in 2015, which helped them in their late run to qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympics.

Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen return to Doha to defend the gold they won in 2018, and the Dutch pair have been seeded seventh.

Brouwer and Meeuwsen, world champions in 2013, are chasing their first World Tour medals since they won gold at the one-star Aalsmeer tournament that came a week after the 2018 Katara Open.

They began the year with a quarter-final finish at The Hague four-star in the first week of January and Doha will be their first tournament since then.

Brazil have two new teams competing following another change to their line-ups.

Rio 2016 gold medallist and 2015 world champion Bruno Schmidt will compete alongside 2017 world champion Evandro Goncalves for the first time.

Their most recent partners, Pedro Solberg and Vitor Felipe, will also make their World Tour debut as a pairing.