Euroleague Basketball
Photo: Euroleague Basketball

Fenerbahce drew first blood in their Euroleague quarter-final series against Real Madrid, taking a narrow 75-69 win in Istanbul.

The Turkish side are looking for back-to-back Final Four appearances and showed no signs of fatigue or even nervousness as they coped with leader Jan Vesely in the first half and for periods of the third quarter.

But the reigning champions fought back later on in the third, and eventually took the lead thanks to Rudy Fernandez as he ignored the deafening noise generated by the Fenerbahce support to bury a triple.

The hosts though rediscovered their form in the fourth and a corner three from Bogdan Bogdanovic, who hit 17 points on the night, gave Fenerbahce a 72-64 cushion with 1:27 left.

“It’s a great start, but we have to put our heads down now,” said Kostas Sloukas, who also hit 17 for the winners.

“We have [game two] in two days a very crucial game to make 2-0. We have to be concentrated. It will be for sure a different game. We made a lot of mistakes. We need to improve and to play the defence that we played today. In the beginning of the game, we were underdogs, because of missing Vesely. We need to take advantage of this, but we need to also go everybody to rebound. Excellent job from everybody: we need to continue. Excellent crowd, unbelievable today, I think next game will be just as difficult as today.”

CSKA EXCITE IN WIN OVER CRVENA ZVEZDA

CSKA Moscow had to fight hard to shake off Crvena Zvezda Belgrade in game one of their quarter-final Playoff, but even when faced with a challenge, they still won with style.

The Euroleague’s leading scorer Nando De Colo was held to single digits, but he was still able to make an impact as his 10 assists and seven points were enough for a 94-84 in the Russian capital.

And it was down to a Serbian to run the show as Milos Teodosic finished with 23 points in a sublime, all-round showing.

“I would say that this is CSKA in playoff mode,” said Teodosic. “We played a very good game tonight. We need to rest tomorrow and to play one more good game and try to go 2-0 to Belgrade. We need to keep playing good defence and this is the way that we can win the second game, also.”

The four teams all meet again on Thursday.