By Orlando González.

Havana, September 4 (RHC) -- After Sunday's duels, everything was ready for the quarterfinals of the World Basketball Championship hosted by the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan.

The day left two striking results; Lithuania's victory over the United States (110-104) and Canada's success, including a comeback, against Spain (88-85). With the defeat, the Iberians said goodbye to the World Championship and, in the process, put the crown won in the previous version at the disposal of a new monarch.

Latin America was left without representatives on the way to the podium, after the defeats of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Brazil.

The Dominicans were outplayed (112-79) by the Serbians.

For their part, the Puerto Ricans lost (73-57) to the Italians and the Brazilians succumbed (104-84) to Latvia, despite the offensive contribution of Bruno Caboclo, who scored 20 points.

Next Tuesday, Lithuania (undefeated in the tournament) will face Serbia (4-1) and the United States (4-1) and Italy (4-1).

A day later, Germany (another undefeated team in the tournament) and Latvia (4-1) will face off, and Canada (4-1)-Slovenia (4-1) will close this stage.

The lovers of fast-paced sports will have a high quality basketball in this evenly matched series, the prelude to the semifinals.

Predicting a winner is a difficult task, only the match between the Americans and the Italians shows a certain favoritism for the northerners, although the Europeans have come from less to more in the World Cup and the owners of the best league on the planet proved that they are not infallible.

What is certain is that next September 10, world basketball will have a new king, and never before has the road to the throne been as open as it is this time.