In Saturday match held at Jakarta’s GBK Basket Hall, Iran beat Syria 68-55. The Iranian team won the first and third quarters 16-9, 22-14 while narrowly losing the second and fourth quarters 14-15 and 16-17.
Iran is in Group B of the competitions along with United Arab Emirate, Syria and Philippine. UAE and Philippines announced that they won’t participated in the event, however, Philippines came back and was put in Group D. Accordingly, Iran and Syria are the only teams in Group B, which is a rare incident.
“Syria played very well and showed good performance both in defense and attack,” said Iran’s coach Mehran Shahintab, hoping that Iranian players would perform better in the coming game.
Iran will held the quarterfinal match on Monday against a rival which is yet to be determined.
2018 Asian Games kicked off on August 18 in Indonesia and wraps up on September 2. Thousands of Asian athletes compete in 42 different sports.
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