Organized by FIBA Asia, the 29th continental basketball championship in Asia kicks of today in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
In the preliminary round of the tournament, the 2016-champion Iran will confront opponents from India, Syria and Jordan. As announced by the organizing committee of the prestigious Asian event, Persian basketball players will meet India on Wednesday at 05:30 p.m. Tehran local time.
National outfit of Iran will later take up Iraqi contestants on Friday while their third encounter will be competed on August 13 against Jordanians who bagged the bronze medal last year.
Iran’s hopes are pinned on Hamed Haddadi, Arsalan Kazemi, Oshin Sahakian, Sajjad Mashayekhi, Mohammad Jamshidi, Farid Aslani, Behnam Yakhchali, Navid Rezaeifar, Vahid Delirzahan, Rouzbeh Arghavan, Navid Niktash and Meysam Mirzaei.
The 2017 FIBA Asia Cup will take place from 8 to 20 August 2017, a week earlier from the initial scheduled date, in Lebanon. The Nouhad Nawfal Stadium will host the tournament's matches.
The tournament will determine the composition of the joint FIBA Asia and FIBA Oceania qualifiers for the 2019 FIBA World Cup. The top five teams in the 2016 FIBA Asia Challenge will earn an extra berth in the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup for their respective sub-zones. Australia and New Zealand will also participate in this tournament.
All 16 teams who qualify for the tournament also qualify for the first round of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup qualification for FIBA Asia and FIBA Oceania
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