D’Tigress To Face France, China, Mali In W’Cup Qualifiers

D’Tigress will face France, China, and Mali in Group B of their 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup qualifiers billed for February 10 to 13 at the Ranko Žeravica Sports Hall, Belgrade, Serbia.

The World Cup is billed to hold from September 22 to October 1 2022 in Australia with a total of 12 teams.

Australia and the United States have already qualified for the competition as hosts and Olympic champions, while a total of 16 countries will slug it out in four groups for the final 10 slots.

The top two teams qualify automatically for the competition while the two best losers in the groups will join the World Cup train.

D’Tigress will open their encounter at the qualifiers against China on February 10 before slugging it out with France on February 11. Their final game comes up against Mali who they defeated in the final of the 2021 Afrobasket Women’s Championship in Cameroon.

Nigeria and Mali both qualified for the qualification playoffs after finishing first and second at the 2021 Afrobasket.

Nigeria had an impressive performance at the 2018 World Cup  in Spain where they became the first African country to reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup. The team after their opening group game loss to Australia bounce back to record wins over Turkey and Argentina to qualify out of the group stage.

They beat Greece in the qualification round before losing to eventual champions, the US in the quarter-final.