Serbia reach fourth successive EuroBasket quarter-final after overcoming Finland

Serbia underlined their billing as one of the favourites for the EuroBasket 2015 title by impressively overcoming Finland ©AFP/Getty Images

Serbia produced another impressive performance at EuroBasket 2015 to advance to the quarter-final phase of the competition and underline their billing as one of the favourites for the title in Lille.

Having topped Group B following five straight wins, the Serbians were considered huge favourites against a Finnish team who had scraped into the last-16 after three defeats and only two wins in Group A.

The underdogs began brightly, however, and with Sasu Salin and Erik Murphy scoring six and five points respectively in the opening stages of the match, the Finnish team ended the opening quarter with a narrow 24-23 advantage.

Serbia, though, have been extremely impressive offensively throughout the tournament so far and found their rhythm in the second quarter to earn a 48-43 half-time lead, with their star man Nemanja Bjelica impressing once again.

The momentum remained with the Serbian team in the second-half and they began to pull away from their opponents, eventually finishing with a 94-81 winning margin to book their fourth consecutive quarter-final place at the biennial tournament.

Jan Vesely scored 20 points to help Czech Republic to a win over Croatia ©AFP/Getty Images

A potentially highly-charged quarter-final against Croatia failed to materialise, though, as Czech Republic produced an excellent display in their tie.

Jan Vesely, who won nine titles during a spell at Serbian club Partizan Belgrade, proved to be the Czech team’s top performer during the match as scored 20 points to help his team pull away from their opponents.

The third-place finishers in Group D had earned a 48-31 lead by half-time and, despite a late rally by the Croatian team in the final quarter, they ended up being well beaten by the Czechs, who won 80-59.

Italy also booked their place into the next round of the competition after earning a 30 point win over Israel in their last-16 tie.

The Italian team had earned a 40-30 advantage at the halfway mark but were able to score freely in the final two quarters of the match to end with a 82-52 winning margin.

It was a much closer clash between Georgia and Lithuania as they battled for the right to take on the Italian team,.

Georgia earned 20-17 lead by the close of the first quarter but were unable to pull away from their opponents and held only a one point advantage heading into the final quarter of the match.

They were made to pay the price as Jonas Maciulis scored in the closing 30 seconds to move Lithuania into the lead and they held on to earn a dramatic 85-81 win.