Kostas Tsartsaris scored 15 points to lead five other teammates in double figures and pace Greece to a 119-62 victory over Lebanon on Monday — the first day of the final qualifying tournament for the Beijing Olympics.
Slovenia, Croatia and New Zealand also won in the 12-nation event that will send the final three teams to China.
Slovenia downed South Korea 88-76, New Zealand beat Cape Verde 77-50 and Croatia defeated Cameroon 93-79. The remaining teams in the tournament: Brazil, Canada, Germany and Puerto Rico, were to play their first games yesterday.
PHOTO: EPA
Despite often being criticized for slow starts, Greece pressed from the opening tip and jumped out to a 21-6 lead after seven minutes.
Shooting 79 percent from the floor in the second half — and 73 percent for the game — Greece extended its lead to 86-41 by the end of the third quarter.
Lebanon was held to 41 percent shooting, 32 percent on three-point attempts.
Earlier, Marko Tomas scored 22 points to lead Croatia over Cameroon in Group D.
Croatia opened the second quarter with a 16-2 run that turned a three-point lead into a 35-18 advantage. Cameroon never got closer than nine points the rest of the way.
In the other games, US-born Jeff Xavier scored 22 points for Cape Verde, but the Africans trailed 21-4 after the first quarter and were overwhelmed by New Zealand.
“There is a big difference in quality between the two teams,” Cape Verde coach Eric Silva said.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For