BASKETBALL – BAHRAIN will be represented by two teams in the Deqing Masters, taking place today and tomorrow in China, part of this year’s Fiba 3x3 World Tour.
The kingdom’s squads, Riffa and Seef, are set to battle amongst 12 teams in the preliminary round of the competition.
Riffa are in Pool D along with Chongming from China and the winning side from the qualifying draw, while Seef are in Pool B with Toulouse from France and London from the US. Pool A features Ub from Serbia, Baskets Bonn Telekom from Germany, and Marbella from Spain; while Pool C is composed of the Serbian pairing of Liman and Partizan and Shanghai from China.
There are three squads in the qualifiers, including Bayankhairhan MIG from Mongolia, Vozdovac from Serbia, and Tsukuba from Japan.
Riffa are set to hit the half-court with their quartet of Belgian nationals Dennis Donkor, Jonas Foerts, and Vic van Oosterwyck, along with Serbian Milos Antic. They get their campaign underway at 10.50am today morning against the team from qualification, before taking on Chongming at 2pm.
Seef, on the other hand, will be competing with an all-Bahraini foursome of Sayed Mohammed Hameed, Sadeq Shukrallah, Nasser Almosawi, and Alwatheq Ali. Their first outing is against Toulouse at 9.50am, while their game against London will be at 11.40am.
All times are Bahrain.
Should either or both teams qualify for the knockouts, those will be played tomorrow beginning with the quarter-finals, to be followed by the semis and final later in the day.
Riffa and Seef have a chance of meeting in the round of eight, should one side finish as group winners and the other as runners-up.
The kingdom’s two 3x3 teams first competed side by side this season at the Sansar Challenger in Mongolia, held in early September.
Riffa are coming off a strong third-place finish in the Shenzhen Masters, also in China, last weekend. Seef, meanwhile, are back in action on the Fiba 3x3 World Tour for the first time since competing in the Manila Challenger in the Philippines last month.
Playing in their debut season on the leading 3x3 circuit, Seef are still in search for their first win, while they are also looking to make it past the preliminary round of a tournament for the first time.
The Fiba 3x3 World Tour is the premier street basketball series under the International Basketball Federation (Fiba). Following Deqing, Masters competitions will also be held in Macau, Abu Dhabi, and Bucharest before heading to Bahrain for the season’s curtain-closing event on November 21 and 22, entitled the Manama Final.
It will be the third time the Fiba 3x3 World Tour visits the kingdom, but the first time for the year-ending event.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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