Austria Recalls Its First WNBA Player Ahead of Game Against Latvia
Austria women's basketball head coach Jesper Sundberg has named a 23-player preliminary squad for Women's EuroBasket 2027 qualifying. Inga Orekhova, who previously played in the WNBA, returns after a long absence.
Jesper Sundberg, head coach of the Austrian women's national basketball team, has named a preliminary squad of 23 players for the second round of qualifying for Women's EuroBasket 2027. Austria's opponents in Group K are Latvia, Italy and Slovenia. The game against Latvia is scheduled for 11 November at 19:00 at the Sport Arena Wien in Vienna. Austria hopes to reach the European Championship finals for the first time since 1972.
The first qualifying round
In the opening round Austria went 5-1 in Group D, winning both home and away games against Switzerland and Norway. Its most notable result was an 85:81 win over Great Britain in Vienna on 15 November 2025 in front of 1,000 spectators. On 17 August the national federation announced that Sundberg's contract was extended to February 2028. Federation secretary general Aldin Saracevic said the coach had lifted the team to a new level and instilled a winning mentality.
Core of the squad and a return
The team is built around Sarah Sagerer, the 2025 Latvian champion, who averaged 17.0 points in qualifying. Alexia Allesch averaged 13.0 points and 10.0 rebounds, and Sigrid Koizar, the Austrian league's most valuable player, averaged 11.7 points and 6.0 assists. University of Oklahoma guard Sina Höllerl is unlikely to take part.
Inga Orekhova returns to the national team after a long break, having represented Austria's 3x3 team in recent summers. She was born in Sevastopol, moved to Austria with her parents in early childhood and kept her Ukrainian citizenship. Orekhova played in the US college league NCAA for South Florida, scoring 1,072 points in 87 games. In the WNBA, the US professional women's league, the Atlanta Dream took her 18th overall in the second round of the 2014 draft. She played two games for Atlanta and, the following year, four for the Connecticut Sun.
What comes next
In the second qualifying round, 24 teams are split into six groups, and the top two from each group advance to the finals. Games will be played on 8–18 November 2026 and 7–17 February 2027.
