An intriguing opening day in Chekhov and Vidnoe, with reigning champions the United States, surviving an early scare against Spain when their captain and star forward A'ja Wilson sustained an early ankle injury (fortunately it proved to be less serious than originally feared) and the hosts Russia proved they have a frontcourt to strike fear into any opponent, delighting an arena full of home supporters on their way to a resounding victory over Chinese Taipei. There was also an emotional maiden victory for up-and-coming Belgium (with the legendary Ann Wauters on their coaching team) over neighbours France and the Netherlands weathered the storm of a huge Argentine comeback to record an opening tournament win.
A brief reminder of the competition format : the 16 teams are divided into groups of 4. After their opening pool matches all teams proceed to the knockout round of 16 according to their final pool position (ie 1st placed team in Group A plays 4th placed team in Group B etc) and then the 8 winners make up the quarter-finalists, with the losing nations playing off for 9-16 classification places. All games are currently being broadcast live on FIBA's YouTube Channel here : https://youtu.be/cBiW2jBYpYw. Yesterday's results were as follows :-
Group A
- Russia 89 - 43 Chinese Taipei
- Netherlands 79 - 65 Argentina
Group B
- China 73 - Egypt 60
- USA 72 - Spain 57
Group C
- Belgium 64 - 60 France
- Canada 71 - 62 Mali
Group D
- Brazil 82 - 51 Korea
- Australia 105 - 62 Serbia
Today's scheduled matches are as follows. Standout games could be France vs Canada, with the French looking to recover from a disappointing defeat versus Belgium and Canada struggling somewhat yesterday against African qualifiers Mali, along with the big tie between Argentina and the hosts Russia. All game times are local. Subtract 1 hour for CET, 2 hours for BST.
Group A
- Argentina v Russia (18:00)
- Chinese Taipei v Netherlands (19:45)
Group B
- Egypt v Spain (17:30)
- USA v China (20:15)
Group C
- Mali v Belgium (13:00)
- France v Canada (15:45)
Group D
- Brazil v Australia (13:30)
- Serbia v Korea (15:15)