RUS - Unexpected change

MOSCOW (EuroBasket/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - If Russia are going to qualify for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, it won't owe to the coaching expertise of Fotis Katsikaris.

The Greek tactician has left his post as coach of the national team, according to the country's basketball federation (RBF).

Katsikaris, appointed several months ago following David Blatt's decision not to continue at the helm, was supposed to start getting the players ready on Monday for September's EuroBasket, a qualifying event for the FIBA Basketball World Cup.

His departure comes during a period of change at the RBF.

Alexander Krasnenkov, who was president at the time of Katsikaris's appointment, is no longer holding the position.

Instead, the VTB United League's Deputy General Director Julia Anikeeva has been serving as acting president since 12 July.

The RBF has put Vasily Karasev in charge of the national team on an interim basis.

Karasev, a former national team point guard whose son Sergey Karasev played on Russia's Olympic bronze-medal winning team last summer, only just guided the country's men's team to the gold medal at the 27th Summer Universiade (World University Games) in Kazan.

The senior men will begin practice this week in Moscow but leave for a training camp in Italy on Friday.

They will travel to Riga for a couple of friendly games on 8-9 August, and next fly to Belgrade for a warm-up game against Serbia on 12 August.

On 17 August in Slovenia, Russia will face Bosnia and Herzegovina in Koper, and the next day go up against the Slovenians, the hosts of the EuroBasket, in Ljubljana.

The preparations then return to the Baltics, with games against the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Finland on 21, 22 and 23 August, respectively.

Finally, during a 25 August to 1 September training camp in Moscow, Russia will face Ukraine (28 August).

The team will leave for Slovenia on 2 September and face Italy, Greece, Sweden, Finland and Turkey in opening round action.

Russia must finish in the top six of the EuroBasket to qualify for next year's FIBA Basketball World Cup in Spain.

If the Spaniards are in the first six, then a top seven finish will be good enough to punch Russia's ticket to the 2014 event.

Russia's preliminary squad for EuroBasket consists of: Semen Antonov, Nikita Balashov, Sergey Bykov, Evgeny Voronov, Andrey Vorontsevich, Egor Vyaltsev, Maxim Grigoriev, Alexey Zhukanenko, Sergey Karasev, Dmitry Kulagin, Valerii Likhodei, Sergey Monya, Timofey Mozgov, Anton Ponkrashov, Dmitry Sokolov, Vitaly Fridzon, Dmitry Khvostov and Alexey Shved.

FIBA