The 2018FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, the 18th edition of FIBA's premier international tournament for women's national basketball teams, will be held in Spain from 22 to 30 September 2018.[1] This will be the first edition to use the name of FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup. After the last edition, FIBA changed the name of the competition from the FIBA World Championship for Women, in order to align its name with that of the corresponding men's competition.
The United States are the two-time defending champions.[2] This tournament will see the World Cup debut of Belgium and Latvia.
Hosts selection
The whole bidding process started in October 2014. Bids from two nations were submitted. On 31 October 2014, it was confirmed Spain and Israel to be the final basis for the selection of the Hosts.[3] On 16 December 2014, it was announced that Spain won the bid and will host the upcoming World Cup.[4]
2018 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup bidding results
Spain as the hosts automatically qualified for the tournament in December 2014. The United States were the next to qualify after winning Gold at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
The remaining teams will be decided over June, July & August 2017 through the Women’s Continental Cups. The continental qualifiers vary in the number of teams; the European qualifiers will feature 16 teams, Africa will feature 12 teams, Americas feature 10 teams and Asia feature 8 teams. From the 46 teams competing for the final 14 spots, the field will be completed by the top five teams from EuroBasket Women, the top three teams from the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup, the two finalists from the FIBA Women's Afrobasket; as well as the top four teams from the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup, which will see teams from Asia and Oceania compete together for the first time ever.[5]
The tournament will be played in two phases.[6] In the first phase, the 16 qualified teams will be sorted into four groups of four (A-D), each team in a group will play each other once, 24 games will be played in the first phase. The top team from each group will directly advance to the quarterfinals. The teams that place fourth in the group stage will be eliminated. The teams placed second and third from each group will advance to the quarterdinal qualifications, where the winners of the qualification round will then progress to the quarterfinals, losers will be eliminated.
In the second phase, a knockout stage will be used to determine the champion. In the quarterfinals the four winners progress to the semifinals, the four losers play in classification games for 5–8th. In total, 40 games will be played over a total of 8 days.
^"Spain submits candidature to host 2018 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup" (Press release). FIBA. 31 October 2014. Retrieved 26 September 2016. Formerly known as the FIBA World Championship for Women, 2018 will mark the first time that FIBA's flagship event for women's basketball is played under its new name.
Spain
Israel
United States
Belgium
France
Greece
Latvia
Turkey
South Korea
Australia
China
Japan