Serbia, Poland lead march to World Cup QF

Poland's Adam Waczynski lets it all hang out after their win over Russia that sent them to the quarterfinal round. (Fiba)

Argentina, Poland, Serbia and Spain booked their tickets to the quarterfinals of the FIBA World Cup 2019 in China after winning in the opening day of the second round on Friday.

The surprise team of the tournament, Poland continued its magical run with a 79-74 victory over Russia to climb to an undefeated 4-0 mark in Group I, enough to guarantee a top-two finish in the group table alongside Argentina, who walloped Venezuela, 87-67, for its fourth consecutive win.

The Poles are making the most out of their return to basketball’s flagship event after a 52-year absence, last appearing in the World Cup 1967 in Uruguay when they finished fifth in a 13-team tournament.

Serbia and Spain also got the job done in Group J as they moved with identical 4-0 marks to finalize their entries to the next round with victories against Puerto Rico and Italy, respectively.

With a convincing 90-47 triumph over Puerto Rico, Aleksandar Djordjevic’s Serbia team is following the script as one of the title favorites and continued their phenomenal campaign improving their winning margin over the opponents at 40.8 points over four games.

Meanwhile, Spain avoided an Italian upset with a crucial 11-4 run in the fourth quarter to take a 67-60 victory and finalize the list of qualified teams in Wuhan, though the top honors in Group J remain up for grabs and will be decided in Sunday’s matchup of the undefeated pair.

Similarly, Argentina and Poland will play for first place in Group I.

In the Classification Round 17-32, the tournament host hacked out a thrilling 77-72 victory over Korea in front of a raucous crowd in Guangzhou. The win puts China in prime spot to take the lone outright Olympic ticket for the Asian region while Iran scraped by a tough Angola side, 71-62, to remain in contention.

Nigeria defeated Cote d’Ivoire 83-66 and Tunisia topped the Philippines 86-67 to improve to identical 2-2 win-loss cards.

On Saturday, Senegal, still in contention for Africa’s lone direct qualification spot, takes on Germany at 8 p.m. in Shanghai. (Fiba)