BENGALURU (FIBA U18 Women's Asian Championship 2018) – The opening day of #FIBAU18Asia saw eight games in total being played across Divisions A and B.

While most games played out according to script, there were a few surprises as well.

Here are five takeaways from Day 1 of the FIBA U18 Women's Asian Championship 2018:

#1 Big Division A teams live up to their billing: Australia, China, Japan and Korea. Big names who also came up with big wins. While Australia and China were up against fellow Division A sides Indonesia and Malaysia, respectively, Japan and Korea proved their ability to execute their game plan against tougher opposition. All in all, the top four Division A teams lived up to their billing. 

#2 Division B more open than it first seemed: Syria's upset over Kazakhstan and Iran giving hosts India a huge scare, has meant that we could well have at least four or five serious contenders for the sole promotion spot to Division A.

#3 Rude wake up call for Guam and Samoa:  It was the two Pacific island nations' maiden Asian appearances. But historic milestones apart, it wasn't a very pleasant first day for these Oceania teams. While Samoa suffered what could perhaps be termed as a 'respectable loss', Guam was beaten by almost 50 points at the hands of Singapore. 

#4 Key players prove their worth: Whether it was New Zealand's Charlisse Leger-Walker, Iran's Fatemah Ghazvini, Australia's Emma-Nnopu or China's Yutong Liu, all of them stepped up for their respective teams, as expected. That said, Korea's Jihyun Park and Japan's Maya McArthur had sub-par opening games. 

#5 Hosts India's injury woes: The hosts had already lost the services of two of its key performers from last year- Yaishnavi Yadav and Sanjana Ramesh. Today's game against Iran also saw center Pushpa Kumar sitting out, after she rolled her ankle in a recent practice. Considering how India survived barely survived a scare against Iran, these three absences could prove very damaging to the team's hopes of emulating their senior and U16 counterparts (in getting elevated to Division A). 

 FIBA