Al Ketbi, Mansoor extend winning vein at Jiu-Jitsu World Pro meet
Last year’s under-65 kg winner in the black-belt category Rafael Mendes was defeated by Guilherme while the UAE’s Tarek Al Ketbi and Yahia Mansoor repeated their 2009 heroics in Thursday night’s action
Abu Dhabi: In a battle between the Mendes brothers, last year’s under-65 kg winner in the black-belt category Rafael Mendes was defeated by Guilherme while the UAE’s Tarek Al Ketbi and Yahia Mansoor repeated their 2009 heroics in Thursday night’s action in the US$ 150,000 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Abu Dhabi World Pro championships.
Rafael had won the under-65 title last year but had to be content with the silver this time as Guilherme prevailed in a close contest.
In the over 92-kg Black Belt category, Gabriel Vella came good against Ricardo Demente. Vella, who lost in the final last year, extended his brilliant form after his win in last week-end’s Pan American.
The UAE athletes continued to impress in the Blue Belt category finals. Tarek Al Ketbi retained the under-63 title after defeating Ahmad Ghuloom of the UAE, the latter improving on his third place finish last year.
Yahia Mansoor gave the UAE another title win when he won the over -98 kg category. Mansoor had won the under-98 final last year.
The UAE’s third win on the opening night came through Majid Al Naqbi who won the blue belt under 93 title, an event he lost last year in the final.
Nearly 350 martial arts exponents from 38 countries have entered in the three-day championship which concludes tonight at the Abu Dhabi International Tennis Complex.
Results
Blue Belt category
- Blue Belt Under-63kgs: Winner: Tarek Al Ketbi (UAE); 2. Ahmad Ghuloom (UAE); 3. Raymond Lee Massa (NZ) & Ghaleb Odeh Ahmad (Jordan)
- Blue Belt Under-68: 1. Matheus Luckmann (Brazil); 2. Jacob Sandoval (USA); 3. Talib Saleh (UAE) & Kevin Mahecha (USA)
- Blue Belt Under-73: 1. Daniel Svensson (Sweden); 2. Daniel Agard (UK); 3. Issa Able (USA) & Takatoshi Matsumoto (Japan)
- Blue Belt Under-78: 1. Khaled Abdul Kareem (Jordan); 2. Jonathan Tuck (Guam); 3. Zaid Jarandoka (Jordan) Mario Marwan Kamal (Iraq)
- Blue Belt Under-83: 1. Kit Dale (Australia); 2. Gustavo Silvestro (Brazil); 3. Faisal Alsouqi (Jordan) & Wesley Charles (South Africa)
- Blue Belt Under-88:1. Majid Al Naqbi (UAE); 2. Krysztof Saganowski (Poland); 3. Tamer Sameer (Jordan) & Sami Mohammad (Jordan)
- Blue Belt Under-93: 1. Celso Frabetti (Brazil); 2. Faisal Al Ketbi (UAE); 3. Bjoernar Beylich (Norway) & Brandon Kalapu (NZ)
- Blue Belt Under-98: 1. Hideki Sekine (Japan); 2. Willie Leonard (USA); 3. Tarek Matar (UAE) & Orlando Sanches (USA)
- Blue Belt Over-98: 1. Yahia Mansoor (UAE); 2. Marcelo Tarso (Brazil); 3. Mohammad Al Menhali (UAE) & Alex Fraser (Canada)
Black Belt category:
- Black Belt Under-65: 1. Guilherme Mendes (Brazil); 2. Rafael Mendes (Brazil); 3. Almiro Barros (Brazil) & Kataniwa Katsunori (Japan)
- Black Belt Under-74: 1. Gilbert Burns (Brazil); 2. Claudio Matos (Brazil); 3. Michel Maia (Brazil) & Celso Vinicius (Brazil)
- Black Belt Under-83; 1. Braulio Estima (Brazil); 2. Claudio Calazans (Brazil); 3. Delson Heleno (Brazil) & Guto Campos (Brazil)
- Black Belt Under-92: 1. Alexandre Ceconi (Brazil); 2. Romulo Barral (Brazil); 3. Zumbi Larara (Brazil)& Carlos Alexandre (Brazil)
- Black Belt Over-92: 1.Gabriel Vela (Brazil); 2. Ricardo Demente (Brazil); 3. Luiz Felipe Theodoro (Brazil) & Marcus de Almeida (Brazil)
