Becky Hammon irreplaceable for Russian women’s basketball team

Naturalized American Becky Hammon will once again become one of the key figures in Russia’s women’s basketball team, who are preparing to defend their European championship title in Latvia in less than three weeks.

There is not long to go till the event, but Russia's head coach Valery Tikhonenko still has a tough task ahead of him. He needs to select 12 players who will travel to Latvia in early June.

In order to get into the swing of things, the European champions, who won the title in Italy two years ago, are playing a number of friendlies in an extended roster this week.

Valery Tikhonenko

Their latest opponents Ukraine are not a big name in Europe, allowing Tikhonenko to see some of his new players in action. His main concern during the game was the point guard position.

Tikhonenko played youngster Tatyana Popova in Becky Hammon's absence who had been given some time off after the end of the club season. His side had obvious problems passing the ball, suggesting in the future that Russia will be relying on their naturalized American.

“Popova is a very young player and has great potential. She's never played for the national team and you could see her being nervous. Of course, we could play Svetlana Abrosimova as point guard, and you would've seen the result straight away. But we needed to see all options. Anyway, I think Becky Hammon will be our starting point guard,” Valery Tikhonenko said.

One of the main habits of the side's game under Tikhonenko is the full-court press that the Russian team tries to play throughout the game. For the coach this is the key to his tactics.

“Surely we'll try to play like this throughout the tournament. I think this is one of our keys to success. And the girls are very well prepared physically, so we'll be able to do it,” he said.

The Russian team of 2009 has a slightly different look to the one of two years ago, but the side's leaders are still the same.

Ilona Korstin has a reputation of one of the world's top snipers, while the team's captain is center Maria Stepanova. With the likes of Korstin and Stepanova, Russia has every chance of defending their title.

The European champions start their campaign on June 7 against Turkey, with Lithuania and Serbia being their other rivals in the group.