Chinese national women’s 3x3 basketball team bag first-ever Asia Cup; tournament MVP Wang Lili eyes medals in Paris 2024

Wang Lili, Wan Jiyuan, Zhang Zhiting and Huang Kun (from left) of China celebrate during the awarding ceremony after winning the FIBA 3x3 Asia Cup women's final between China and Australia held in Singapore on July 10, 2022. Photo: Xinhua

The Chinese women's basketball team, who finished third in 2017 and was runner-up in 2018, made a breakthrough in the fifth edition of the tournament. In the first Asia Cup since 2019, China overcame Thailand, Japan and Australia on Sunday to claim the title.

Xu Jiamin, the team's head coach, told the media after the victory that "we shall remember the joy of the winning moment, but we also need to forget it, in order to make full preparation for more difficulties down the road."

The team have been a regular fixture on the podium since Xu took control. The China's national women's team recently won bronze at the FIBA 3X3 World Cup in Antwerp, Belgium in June. The team also claimed gold at the Jakarta Palembang 2018 Asian Games, won the championship title at the 2019 FIBA World Cup, and ended up third place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Xu said that building a talent pool for the emerging sport is the main goal in 2022 and they will constantly try new lineups, train young players and make preparations for 2023's qualifier games as well as for the 2024 Olympic Games.

Next, the team will continue their oversea drills in Europe and play in international tournaments.

The Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) has attached great importance to the new sport, setting up a special department to support the team at a very early stage after the event was introduced to the Olympics, according to Su Qun, a well-known basketball commentator in China, which is a main factor of the team's great success on world stage.

Athletes' hustle and grinding on and off the court that became extremely hard during the COVID-19 pandemic, are also seen as essential for the good performance, Su told the Global Times on Monday.

"The sacrifice they made, and the experience of changing career from regular five-strong full court basketball to the 3x3 games is also very valuable," he said.

　　Photo: FIBA official website

Leading Team China to an unbeaten run in the 2022 Singapore games, the 29-year-old guard, Wang Lili, was named tournament MVP.

Compared to the traditional 5x5 basketball games, the 3x3 games are more fast-paced in terms of offense/defense transition, and has only 12 seconds in each possession, Wang told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Monday afternoon.

"You cannot relax your mind and body even for a split second, otherwise your opponent will punish you in a deadly way."

Team China has played three elimination games since 1:30 pm on Sunday in Singapore. And despite the excitement of winning the title, Wang humored that such unprecedented tight schedule of consecutive intense games gave her a physical feeling of being beaten-up on the second morning.

Wang ascribed the key of achieving the zero-loss run all the way to the title at the FIFA Asia Cup to the great teamwork, in particular, to having conducted rigorous studies of opponents to find their weakness during transition.

The semi-finals game with Japan, Wang said, was especially meaningful, as they were defeated by the opponent during the 2022 FIBA World Cup. "We did not like the feeling of loss. We gave it all to fight back."

Recalling the final against defending Champion Australia on the same day, Wang said, we were exhausted during the semis and we fought with perseverance to win the tug of war of defense.

Wang gave her respects to all the teams competing in Singapore, saying that the new 3x3 sports have become much matured over the past years, and each country has increasingly sent their A-list star plays in their country's basketball league to compete, especially after the sports were introduced to the Olympic events.

"Every game in the elimination stage was a close one. They were all pretty strong," Wang said.

Having been named MVP for the tournament, Wang said she had gained great confidence in the future, vowing to keep on grinding and training hard to prepare and compete in the 2024 Olympic Games.

"We stood on the Tokyo podium with a bronze medal last time, and we want to get on the podium again with a medal in gold color in Paris 2024," Wang said.