Serbian side Partizan were forced to dig deep before managing to defeat a determined Riffa side, 21-19, in their final Pool D game of the FIBA 3x3 World Tour Manama Masters at the Bahrain Financial Harbour courts last night.
Riffa’s second consecutive loss – after having earlier gone down 21-15 in their first group game against Dutch team Amsterdam Hipro – meant that they were eliminated from the tournament.
Meanwhile, Partizan’s fourth straight win of the day meant that the Serbian team was one of four sides to go unbeaten on day one of the two-day tournament which is being held in Bahrain for the first time.
Chinese side Hangzhou topped Pool A, Lithuania’s Marijampole Mantinga headed the Pool B table and Belgium’s Antwerp Topdesk led the Pool C table.
Hangzhou will now meet Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah team in the first quarter-final today with Partizan clashing with Austrian side, Vienna in the second.
Marijampole will square off against Amsterdam in the third quarter-final with Antwerp taking on Chinese side Futian in the final game of the last-eight stage.
The 14-team tournament is held under the patronage and in the presence of Supreme Council for Youth and Sports first deputy chairman, General Sports Authority (GSA) chairman and Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) president Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa,
The opening ceremony was attended by Cabinet Affairs Ministry Undersecretary and BOC vice-president Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, GSA chief executive Abdulrahman Askar, Labour Market Regulatory Authority CEO Nebras Talib, FIBA Asia president Dr K Govindara, and Bahrain Basketball Association president Waleed Al Alawi, in addition to heads of sports federations and senior guests.
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