What happened in Group A

Pokey Chatman who is the coach of the Slovak Repbulic was more than happy with her teams victory (77-55) against Ukraine.

In her roster she has two players based in France: Martina Gyurcsi (Luptakova) from Challes-les-Eaux and Lucia Lásková who played for Roche Vendée in NF1.

Both players appeared on the score sheet with 12 and 9 points respectively.

However the star of the match was Zuzana Zirková who led her team with 16 points;

Ukraine were out muscled all through the game despite winning the rebound battle. They also had a poor shooting day from beyond the arc with just 2-of-14.

Spain, without Amaya Valdemoro who is likely to miss the first round of games, just did enough to hold off the Czech Republic (66-59).

The Czech Republic had the best of the first period and led (23-14) but then struggled during the second period allowing Spain back into the match as the teams went into the locker room tied (32-32).

EuroBasket Women day 1 from Group B

Greece had left EuroBasket 2007 with no wins. So they finally ended the negative series with a (59-43) victory against Hungary for the EuroBasket Women 2009 edition.

Evanthia Maltsi who played for Bourges Basket two seasons ago led the Greek scoring with 19 points.

However she only managed 1-from-9 from beyond the arc, in what she described as a poor-shooting day. Greece are not one of the tallest teams in these championships but they looked very disciplined in defense.

They only allowed Hungary 12 points in the first half of the game.Nora Bujdoso who has played for Bourges Basket for the last two seasons scored 7 points for Hungary.

Latvia, the hosts and playing in front of a huge crowd, blew away Poland with an opening lead (12-1) with just four minutes played.

Latvia completely dominated the first half of the game and led (42-22).

Poland made a fight of things during the third period but then lost Agnieszka Bibrzycka with a suspected sprained ankle.For Latvia Anete Jekabsone-Zogota, Gunta Basko and Zane Taman all came up with big numbers and scored 20, 18 and 10 points respectively.

However the newcomers to the national team Sabine Niedola and Aija Putnina added 8 and 11 points respectively as Latvia cruised to victory (86-52).

EuroBasket Women Group C - Made in France

When you look at the Serbian team roster, it has a touch of the LFB with so many players having experience in France.

However the French touch was not enough for Serbia as they lost to Lithuania (71-49).

Lithuania used their size to overpower the youthful exuberance of Serbia. Gintare Petronyte was in firm form and scored 20 points and took 8 rebounds while Egle Stakneviciene added 19 points in the victory.

Ana Perovic led the scoring with 11 points for Serbia.Russia had a difficult time in overcoming Turkey (74-61).

It was not a smooth Russian performance offensively.

But with Svetlana Abrosimova scoring 16 points they always held the advantage. Once they took the lead (10-9) after five minutes of the first period balanced scoring saw the Russians through with Olga Arteshina contributing 14 points, Irina Osipova and Illona Korstin 11 and 10 points respectively.

For Turkey Durdane Gumusay connected three times from beyond the arc for a total of 11 points.

EuroBasket Group D - France off to a good start