It gives the home nation a considerable advantage going into the second leg, due to take place on Sunday (June 23).

The winner of the tie at Arena 1 in Santa Maria Beach Park will qualify for the 2019 Association of National Olympic Committees World Beach Games in Qatar in October.

In the men's beach soccer event, the preliminary stage begun with Group A victories for Morocco and Cape Verde.

Morocco beat Algeria 7-3, while Cape Verde defeated Equatorial Guinea 14-6.

Nigeria and Senegal both made a winning start to Group B as the former overcame Kenya 12-4 and the latter thrashed Djibouti 13-0.

Among the other sports on today's schedule was kiteboarding, in which there were four men's individual foilracing race wins for Mauritius' Jean Lauri Fenouillot de Falbaire in the opening series.

In all four cases, Morocco's Hicham Tirya finished second.

Cape Verde's Elton Fortes Andrade came third in the first two races, while compatriots Zenedine Silva and Luis Duarte did so in the third and fourth races respectively.

In the sole men's individual boardercross race, Fenouillot de Falbaire ranked third behind winner Boudjatit Ahmed Ramzi of Algeria and fellow Mauritian Luis Drany Clair.

Beach volleyball competition also got underway today with Gambia's Abie Kujabi and Fatoumatta Ceesay among the stand-out performers.

The duo picked up two wins in Group A of the women's event, beating Tanzania's Hellen Richard Mwegoha and Yasinta Remmy Kasinisala 21-7, 21-10 and South Sudan's Asia Jaffar and Teresa Matoc 21-7, 21-8.