The 29th seeds beat their Italian opponents 13-21, 21-13, 23-21 to make the ideal start to their Pool D campaign at the Eisbahn Areal in the Swiss Alps village.

It was a first win for Santos Pereira and Younousse in three FIVB World Tour meetings with Lupo and Nicolai.

The Qatari pair are due to conclude pool play with matches against the United States’ Jacob Gibb and Taylor Crabb tomorrow and Chile’s Marco and Esteban Grimalt on Friday (July 7).

Gibb and Crabb beat the Grimalt cousins 21-15, 21-16 today to join Santos Pereira and Younousse at the top of Pool B.

Nicolai and Lupo will look to bounce back from their disappointment tomorrow, when they face the Chileans.  

In the women’s competition, home favourites Joana Heidrich and Anouk Verge-Depre made a perfect start to Pool H with two wins out of two.

The ninth-seeded Swiss pair opened play with a 21-19, 22-24, 15-12 win over the US’s Nicole Branagh and Kerri Walsh Jennings.

They followed this up by defeating The Netherlands’ Jolien Sinnema and Joy Stubbe 21-10, 21-12.

Ranked 10th on the 2017 FIVB World Tour, Heidrich and Verge-Depre can win Pool H tomorrow with victory over eighth-seeded Fernanda Alves and Barbara Seixas of Brazil.

A Swiss women's team has not won a pool in Gstaad since 2013.

Alves and Seixas also won both their outings today, beating Sinnema and Stubbe 21-10, 23-21 and Branagh and Walsh Jennings 21-18, 21-23, 15-11.