{"id":43413,"date":"2026-03-19T07:52:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/43413\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T07:52:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:52:42","slug":"opals-go-unbeaten-in-world-cup-warm-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/43413\/","title":{"rendered":"Opals go unbeaten in World Cup warm up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/91f1191e-a7c8-4e0a-acd1-18452a4040bf.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\"\/>Sami Whitcomb led the way as the Opals edged out Canada to finish unbeaten at World Cup qualifying. (Dave Hunt\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n<p>The Opals have completed their FIBA women\u2019s basketball World Cup qualifying tournament in Istanbul with a perfect 5\u20130 record after beating Canada 82\u201376.<\/p>\n<p>Already qualified through their Asian Cup efforts last year, Sandy Brondello&#8217;s Australian squad were able to gain experience and boost cohesion against top-level opposition in this campaign ahead of the World Cup in Berlin in September.<\/p>\n<p>After wins over Argentina, Japan, Hungary and hosts Turkiye, the Opals faced another strong challenge from Canada on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p> Sharpshooter Sami Whitcomb led the victory against Canada with 23 points, including 5-of-5 from the arc. <\/p>\n<p> Isobel Borlase added 13 points, while Alanna Smith also provided strong support with 12 points and eight rebounds.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/aa08f5cb-7df5-4c9f-8723-c4eab84f26da.jpg\" alt=\"fff\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"\/>Alanna Smith (l) in action in the win over Hungary on March 14. (EPA PHOTO)<\/p>\n<p> \u201cI thought all of our games we had to dig deep at different stages, but that was our grittiest, toughest game and I\u2019m really proud of us,&#8221; Whitcomb said. &#8220;They (Canada) obviously were playing for their lives.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cIt was such a good opportunity to get that back-against-the-wall kind of feeling. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you\u2019re at the end of a tournament, you\u2019re exhausted and everything\u2019s on the line. So, I was proud of how we stepped up. Everybody played a really important role,.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Brondello praised the team\u2019s leadership group.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cI trust them. They make everyone play with a little bit more calmness and poise, especially Sami, Cayla (George), and Lan (Smith). <\/p>\n<p> \u201cThe leadership group do such a good job of making sure that they\u2019re having fun. There\u2019s a lot of laughter, and when we have a connected group off the court, it helps us on the court.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rightsportal.copyright.com.au\/licensing\/general-enquiry\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"license-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">License this article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sami Whitcomb led the way as the Opals edged out Canada to finish unbeaten at World Cup qualifying.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[24629,24630,225,24631,112,2574,435,190,14714,38,24632,20312,13425,20311,1161],"class_list":["post-43413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-aap","tag-aapnews","tag-australia","tag-australian-news","tag-berlin","tag-breaking-news","tag-daily-news","tag-germany","tag-global-news","tag-news","tag-news-app","tag-news-headlines","tag-news-today","tag-today-news","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116254758968127928","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}