By Abdellatif Sharaa

KUWAIT: The 16th round of the 34th Arab Basketball Clubs Championship will kick off on Monday with four matches. Kuwait will meet Yemen’s Mina by 7:00 pm, following a match between Bahrain’s Ahli and Iraq’s Dijla University (5:00 pm). Also, there will be a match between Kazma and Widad Bufarik (Algeria) (3:00 pm), while the opening match will be by 1:00 pm between Egypt’s Al-Ittihad Alexandria and Qatar’s Gharrafa. The second half of the round of 16th will be played on Tuesday.

The conclusion of the preliminaries saw Al-Ittihad Alexandria lost to Kuwait 74-72, while Al-Ahli Egypt defeated Lebanon’s Al-Riyadh 88-71. Bahrain’s Ahli defeated Oman’s Bashael 68-62; Gharrafa beat Mina 78-73 while Jahra lost to Beirut 84-88. Meanwhile 16 clubs are participating in the third round of the 34th Arab Basketball Clubs Championship. The championship produced one of its surprises as Al-Sadd (from Qatar) defeated Kazma (Kuwait) 90-71 in third group.

Jahra (Kuwait) overcame Algeria’s Widad Boufarik 75-63 in the fourth group. Beirut (Lebanon) defeated Iraq’s Dijla University 84-80. Jahra and Beirut now have 4 points while Widad and Dijla remain with 2 points from two loses (winner gets two points, loser gets one). Kazma’s loss to Al-Sadd in the third group left Al-Sadd with four points, while Kazma now have five points. Oman’s Bashaer and Bahrain’s Ahli have 3 points each.

The match between Ahli Benghazi of Libya and Syria’s Ahli Aleppo went to extra time. Libya’s team won 79-71 - raising their points total to 4 in the first group, while Ahli Aleppo have 3. In the second group, Ahli of Egypt continued their run. They defeated Qatar’s Gharrafa 108-59, followed by a decisive win by Lebanon’s Al-Riyadhi over Yemen’s Mina 103-54. The winners now have 4 points each, while Gharrafa and Mina have 2.