Nigeria’s women’s national basketball team, D’Tigress, have been handed a tricky qualifying group for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 in draws held in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday.

Four qualifying tournaments featuring four national teams each will be staged next year, with the top three from each qualifying for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2022 to complete the 12-team field for the main event

All qualifying tournaments will hold from 10-13 February 2022.

D’Tigress will face France, China and Mali in Group B in Belgrade, Serbia for a chance to pick a ticket to the World Cup to be hosted in Australia.

Ranked 16th in the world and first in Africa, D’Tigress will kick off their campaign against 7th-ranked China on 10 February before facing 5th-ranked France a day later and rounding off against 41st-ranked Mali on 13 February.

Group A features Australia, South Korea, Serbia and Brazil with matches to be held in Belgrade.

Bosnia Herzegovina, Japan, Canada and Belarus will compete in Group C in Osaka, Japan.

Group D will have Russia, USA, Puerto Rico and Belgium do battle in Washington D.C. USA.

Nigeria are in the qualifying tournaments by virtue of winning the 2021 FIBA Women’s Afrobasket with Mali also qualifying as runners up.

The host of the Women’s World Cup 2022, Australia, and Olympic champions, USA, will participate in the qualifiers.

However, both of these teams receive automatic qualification for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2022 – Australia as event hosts and the USA by virtue of winning the Olympic Women’s Basketball Tournament in Tokyo.

The Women’s World Cup 2022 is set to take place from 22 September – 1 October 2022.

D’Tigress enjoyed an excellent outing at the 2018 edition in Spain where they became the first African side to make the quarterfinals.