The Basketball Season gets Underway [Archives:1999/29/Sports]

A preliminary basketball tournament between four teams was held from the 12th through the 14th of July, 1999. The teams which participated were Zuhra Sana’a, Sha’ab Ibb, Tilal Taiz, and Ahli Aden. Each team played against all of the other teams in the tournament once. The matches were well played, although Ahli dominated all of its games, winning every game by a margin of at least fifteen points, and were declared the champion of the tournament after defeating Tilal. Tilal was second, losing only to Ahli, followed by Zuhra and Sha’ab. This was a minor tournament, meant as preparation for the official tournament due to start in two weeks, but it was well organized and officiated. Basketball is a sport that is still rather new to Yemen, and the sport is still not played very widely, but it is now growing rapidly, and the level of play has risen significantly in recent years. Many of the players on all of the teams were new to the league, and most of these had never played in any official games before, so these games, played by official international rules, were excellent preparation for them. One can only hope that the official tournament will be run as well. 
Jeremy Cox, 
Yemen Times 

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