FIBA 3x3 Asia Cup: Indian men's team one win away from main draw

India men's 3x3 basketball team kickstarted their campaign with two comfortable wins over Macau and Maldives respectively while the women's team took a dominating 21-1 victory over Northern Mariana Islands at the FIBA 3x3 Asia Cup Qualifying round in Singapore on Wednesday.

The men's team started the day with a 21-10 win over the Maldives after Pranav Prince's top-class performance who scored eight points and a clinical Sahaij Sekhon who clinched seven points. The Maldives started positively and scored four two-pointers to start with, but then Sekhon with his swift movement turned the tables.

They followed up the same momentum in the second game and claimed their back-to-back victory ( 21-13) against Macau.

This match was going very closely till the halfway point as both teams kept on scoring one-pointers but then Princepal Singh used his height and physique against shorter Macau players to win a few quick points.

He scored the most number of points (8) in the match, then Sekhon scored the first two-pointer of the tournament for the Indian team to extend the lead to 17-9 and then eventually won the match.

India is currently in the second position in the qualifying group D behind Malaysia who also had two wins but with a better margin on the first day. Both the teams will play against each other tomorrow in a virtual knockout match as the winner will progress to the main draw.

The women's 3x3 team had a much easier (21-1) first-group match against debutant Northern Mariana Islands to kickstart their campaign. They will play their next two matches against Hong Kong and Indonesia tomorrow.