{"id":884268,"date":"2026-09-08T09:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884268\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T09:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T09:14:11","slug":"opals-next-world-cup-opponent-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884268\/","title":{"rendered":"Opals&#8217; next World Cup opponent revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Australian Opals&#8217; next opponent at the 2026 FIBA World Cup in Berlin has been revealed following the completion of the group stage.<\/p>\n<p>Sandy Brondello&#8217;s Opals, headlined by nine WNBL stars, will now take on Italy in the Qualification Round on Thursday\u00a0AEST.<\/p>\n<p>This comes after the Opals finished second in Group C, following wins against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnbl.com.au\/news\/opals-cruise-past-puerto-rico-in-world-cup-opener\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Puerto Rico<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnbl.com.au\/news\/australian-opals-outlast-turkiye-to-maintain-perfect-world-cup-record\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">T\u00fcrkiye<\/a>, as well as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnbl.com.au\/news\/australia-belgium-world-cup-loss\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">loss to Belgium<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Italy, who finished third in Group D, head into the fixture with Australia following a win against Czechia and losses to the United States and China.<\/p>\n<p>The Opals, who were sweating on the fitness of injured forward Alanna Smith, will play Spain in the quarter-final if they defeat Italy.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday&#8217;s fixture tips off at 4.45am AEST, live on ESPN via Disney+ and Kayo.<\/p>\n<p>Read more &gt;&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wnbl.com.au\/news\/australian-opals-world-cup-preview-everything-you-need-to-know\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Australian Opals World Cup Preview: How to watch, squads &amp; more<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6a66a3063ae7a05648d77d3f_WNBL_Article Banner_1920x250.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian Opals&#8217; next opponent at the 2026 FIBA World Cup in Berlin has been revealed following the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-884268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}