From August 26 to 31, the Baluan Sholak Sports Palace in Almaty will host the first round of the 2029 Asia Cup men's basketball qualifiers, reports infohub.kz.
In addition to Kazakhstan, teams from Sri Lanka, Palestine, Maldives, and Kyrgyzstan will compete. These tournaments in Almaty, Dubai, Ulaanbaatar, and Seremban (Malaysia) are the first stage of a multi-step qualification for the 2029 Asia Cup. The top three teams from each group will advance to the second round, where they will be split into two groups of six.
From November 23 to December 1 this year, eight teams will be determined to join the 16 teams already qualified for the 2025 Asia Cup final tournament in the third qualifying stage. Then, the 24 teams will be drawn into six groups, with the top two from each group earning spots in the 2029 Asia Cup. Third-place teams will compete for four more spots in the final in a fourth qualifying stage.
The first round schedule includes: August 26 - Maldives vs Sri Lanka and Palestine vs Kyrgyzstan; August 27 - Sri Lanka vs Palestine and Kazakhstan vs Maldives; August 28 - Kyrgyzstan vs Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan vs Palestine; August 30 - Maldives vs Palestine and Kazakhstan vs Kyrgyzstan; August 31 - Kyrgyzstan vs Maldives and Kazakhstan vs Sri Lanka.
Kazakhstan has participated in the Asia Cup 13 times, failing to reach the final tournament only three times. Unfortunately, this happened at the last Asia Cup in 2025, so Kazakhstan starts from an early stage. On the other hand, the opponents in the home tournament are quite manageable, but the challenges will be greater in later stages, especially due to the lack of competitive play for the national team players. As previously reported by Kursiv, due to a sharp reduction in funding, the basketball club Astana has been forced to withdraw from the VTB United League, and the level of the domestic championship is not high enough for the national team players to remain competitive internationally.
Kazakhstan's best result at the Asia Cup was in 2007, when the team lost to South Korea 76:80 in the bronze medal game in Tokushima, Japan.