As the 2025/26 WNBL season wrapped last week, the attention now shifts to the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup Qualifying tournaments. There are four qualifying tournaments happening around the world from 11-17 March – China, France, Turkiye, and Puerto Rico. Each qualifying tournament has six countries competing for one of the final 11 spots at this year’s FIBA World Cup which will be held in September in Germany.
Having won the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup in July last year, the Opals have nabbed one of the World Cup’s automatic qualifying spots as a continental cup champion (other nations already qualified are Nigeria, Belgium, USA, along with tournament hosts Germany). This relieves a lot of pressure for the Opals in this tournament, but it still presents and important opportunity for the team to prepare for September and get valuable competitive game reps in.
This year’s version of the Opals will once again have some Caps flavour, with Jade Melbourne and Zitina Aokuso being selected to the squad. They join coach Paul Goriss, who’ll be assisting Sandy Brondello as the program’s Associate Head Coach.
This is Jade’s first time putting on an Opals jersey since her breakout 2024 Paris Olympics campaign. From her rise as a junior to being one of the best Australian hoopers, she has also become a mainstay in the Opals program in recent years.
“Representing Australia is the pinnacle. I think there’s no greater honour and it’s just such a really cool feeling,” she said.
“The Opals always talk about honouring the past and paving the way for the future. For so long, I’ve always looked up to a lot of the girls in the program – and still do. But now I have a bigger responsibility in continuing to pave the way for the next generation and establish myself as one of the leaders, especially at the point guard position moving forward because I want to be a part of this for a very long time.”
For Zitina, this is her first major Opals call up outside of the FIBA Asia Zone.
“It means everything. Making the Australian team at any level is a huge achievement and is always something that I strive for and I’m super excited for it,” she said.
“I’ve played in Turkiye before and we’ll play them again in the tournament so I’m looking forward to that. I’m also looking forward to work with the rest of the team and learning from them in terms of leadership, skills, and also the competition. It’s international play, so it’s going to be quick, physical and I’m excited for that.”
For Goz, it’s a great opportunity for the Opals to get the whole group together leading into the World Cup.
“It’s an opportunity to get the WNBA, European, and WNBL-based players in the same team at the same time,” he said.
“With the way FIBA qualifying is set up now, we get limited opportunities to get the full group together so this will be an important opportunity for us to build chemistry and get used to Sandy’s system.”
“Even though we’re qualified (for the World Cup), it’s a great opportunity to cement our playing style, see what different combinations look like, get a look at different international teams and how some of our player will look in that environment, and evaluate what we’d need to work on leading up to September.”
The Opals are grouped with Argentina, Canada, Hungary, Japan and the hosts, Turkiye.
“We’re familiar with Japan, but I can’t recall the last time we played Hungary. Canada’s always a good game, they’ve got some really good players. Turkiye, we haven’t played since 2016 or 2018 and similarly, Argentina we haven’t played for a number of years as well,” Goz said.
“So it’s good in that regard – being able to play different styles of basketball to prepare us for the World Cup.”
The Caps flavour in the FIBA World Cup Qualifying tournament won’t be limited to the Opals as New Zealand will feature our Caps assistant coach Nat Hurst as the Tall Ferns head coach, and guard Emme Shearer makes another appearance for the national side.
The Tall Ferns will compete in the Puerto Rico qualifying tournament along with the USA, Spain, Italy, Puerto Rico, and Senegal. Since the Tall Ferns haven’t gained an automatic qualifying spot, they’ll need to finish in the top 3 of their tournament to book a ticket to Germany.
HOW TO WATCH
All Australian Opals and NZ Tall Fern games will be broadcast live on ESPN and ESPN on Disney+.
The Opals kick off their campaign first against Argentina, tonight at 10:30pm AEDT.
FULL SCHEDULE
Wednesday 11 March
10:30PM | Australia v Argentina MATCH HUB
Thursday 12 March
5:00AM | New Zealand v Spain MATCH HUB
10:30PM | Australia v Japan MATCH HUB
Friday 13 March
8:00AM | New Zealand v Italy MATCH HUB
Saturday 14 March
10:30PM | Australia v Hungary MATCH HUB
Sunday 15 March
5:00AM | New Zealand v Senegal MATCH HUB
Monday 16 March
4:30AM | Australia v Turkiye MATCH HUB
5:00AM | New Zealand v USA MATCH HUB
Wednesday 18 March
1:30AM | Australia v Canada MATCH HUB
11:00AM | New Zealand v Puerto Rico MATCH HUB
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