After an exciting and drama filled men's Oceania Championships, the Tall Ferns and Opals take to the court this week, to decide the Oceania team to progress to the FIBA World Championships in 2010 in Czech Republic.

The first game will be held in Wellington, New Zealand on Monday 31st August at 7.30pm (NZtime) and in Canberra, Australia on Wednesday 2nd September at 7.00pm Game will be available live from SkyTV (NZ) and FOX Sports (Australia)
The Australian Opals and the New Zealand Tall Ferns will play the same, new 2-game competition format on a home and away basis as the men did. However, unlike the men, only 1 Oceania team will progress through to the FIBA Women's World Championships.
Australia have never lost a game to the Tall Ferns since competition commenced in 1974. However, the Opals are going into the series without Lauren Jackson, Penny Taylor, Kristi Harrower or Suzi Batkovic. So while the NZ Tall Blacks had to wait 30 years for their first victory over Australia in 2001, could this be the year of the women?

This year, for the first time, each of the participating countries will host a single game in the series, with the winner of the series decided either on the number of games won, or in the event of a drawn series, the aggregate points across the entire series.
The new competition format reflects the desire of both Basketball Australia and Basketball New Zealand to have significant international matches played on home soil on a regular basis. Under the previous two or three game series played in one country, local fans only got the chance to watch their local heroes play on home soil once every four years.

The new format will ensure that each game in the series is competitive, because even if a team is losing in the first game, it will try to minimise the points spread to improve its chances of winning the series through victory in the second game.
With the new format, basketball fans in Australia and New Zealand will get to see the Opals, Tall Ferns, Boomers and Tall Blacks, playing in country every two years.

The two national federations are looking to complement the two-yearly Oceania (home-and-away) Championships with an annual trans-Tasman clash, also played home-and-away, to increase the presence of the national team games in their respective countries to an annual event.

Organisers will be closely watching the support for the 2009 Oceania Championship with a view to increasing the number of games in the series if needed.
The 2009 FIBA Oceania Championships will qualify teams from the Oceania continent for the FIBA World Championships in 2010 which will be played in Turkey (men), August 28th – September 12th and the Czech Republic (women), September 23rd – October 3rd.
How the series will be decided:

If one country wins both games, they will become the Oceania Champion.
If each country wins one game then the aggregate points scored in both games will determine the series winner.
If each country wins one game and the aggregate points across both games is equal at the end of the second game, then the normal FIBA

system for breaking a tie will be used – that is, the second game will continue with as many extra periods of five (5) minutes as is necessary until the aggregate points across the two games is not equal.