Fiba 3×3: Manila Chooks grouped with No. 1 Liman, host Lusail

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Manila Chooks TM will head into the Fiba 3×3 Doha World Tour Masters with a familiar foe waiting for them.

The Philippine-representative in the international tournament was grouped with world No. 1 Liman of Serbia in Pool A along with Lusail of host country Qatar.

It was in the 2019 edition of the tournament that Joshua Munzon and Troy Rike, who were still under Pasig Chooks at the time, played with Taylor Statham, Nikola Pavlovic, and Angelo Tsagarakis to stun Liman in the pool stages for a 19-16 win.

It was also in that same tournament that the team of Alvin Pasaol and Santi Santillan—who were still under Balanga Chooks—along with Karl Dehesa and Travis Franklin lost to Liman, 9-21.

Pasig and Balanga finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in that 2019 tournament.

“It’s definitely going to be a test for us to square against those European teams but you know I think we’re ready mentally, physically,” said Munzon as the stakes are high in this level 10 tournament with USD 40,000 going to the champion.

“I think we’re ready as we can be and we’ll see how things go. I am confident with my team. We’re ready to get after it,” he added.

Liman will play Manila on Friday at 11:55 pm (Manila time) with 2017 FIBA 3X3 World Tour MVP Stefan Stojacic, world No. 3 Stefan Kojic, No. 4 Mihailo Vasic, and No. 6 Aleksandar Ratkov comprising the team.

“We have played more recently than probably most of the other teams here. We’re kinda still in game mode and team mode heading right into that,” said Rike.