NEWCASTLE (Paul Nilsen's Women's Basketball Worldwide) - This weekend sees the return to the Final Four format for the finale of the EuroLeague Women season.

Prague promises much and I expect the competition to deliver in a big way for itself and also for women's basketball generally.

The meetings between former champions UMMC Ekaterinburg and fellow Russian side (and indeed competition rookies) Dynamo Kursk have been absolutely sensational this season.

Kursk won both regular season games in the competition by a single point (78-77 and 74-73) to do the double against UMMC and also recently won in the Russian Premier League despite being without kingpin Nnemkadi Ogwumike and that highlights just how dangerous they are.

Ogwumike, Isil Alben, Anete Jekabsone, Seimone Augustus, Epiphanny Prince, Evgenia Belyakova, Jelena Milovanovic, Irina Osipova - the Kursk roster is just loaded, loaded, loaded.

Their opponents have the stunning trio of Candace Parker, Sandrine Gruda and Alba Torrens, along with Ewelina Kobryn, Deanna Nolan, Kristi Toliver, Olga Arteshina, Silvia Dominguez and so on.

There's so many reasons just to watch the first Semi-Final clash right there - it reads like a who's who of the women's basketball world.

Although it is just such a pity that EuroLeague Women legend Diana Taurasi will now miss the Final Four due to her broken hand.

And, judging by the way that Taurasi flattened her USA team-mate Augustus with a brutal offensive screen in the recent league game, this one is going to have spice and steel as well as silky talent.

Although just don't talk to UMMC about this format, since four is most certainly not the magic number for them.

They have lost their last four Semi-Finals at Final Fours and while Kursk are first-timers, they can't like the record of their Latvian head coach Gundars Vetra, since he was holding the UMMC reins for three of those painful Ekaterinburg losses!

The second Semi-Final has pitted ZVVZ USK Prague against Fenerbahce, who are both actually debutantes in the Final Four format - although the latter, incredibly, are bidding to reach a third successive Final.

The Turkish side maybe have not received enough credit for being on the verge of this potential accomplishment, since they have actually had a huge turnover of players and there are just three survivors from the team that played in the first title game during 2013.

There is also the quirk that Quanitra Hollinsworth was in the UMMC team that day and she heads into the weekend as the only Fenerbahce player to have started every game.

Without Angel McCoughtry, there will be a big onus on Shavonte Zellous who of course won EuroLeague Women last year with Galatasaray, before making the controversial move across the Bosphorus Strait.

She will be pivotal and so will Agnieszcka Bibryzycka, as the Polish veteran looks to become only the seventh player to have passed 2,500 points in the tournament if she makes one more basket.

Meanwhile, if Fenerbahce do reach the Final, she will tie with Zuzana Zirkova in fifth place for the most EuroLeague Women appearances.

And, if 'Biba' is to retire at the end of the season - as has been widely reported in the last 48 hours in the Polish media - it would certainly be a fitting conclusion to a stellar career.

As for Prague, it's been a historic first step for them to be in the last four and it has been quite a roller-coaster for the host club in an eventful season, when they have been somewhat erratic - veering from imperious to worryingly fragile.

However, they have got there in the end and so credit to Natalia Hejkova and her players.

Despite the event not being a deserved swansong for the now retired Eva Viteckova, I suspect there will be no more interested spectator and that is saying something as I think there is huge anticipation around this event.

Prague will have the veteran Laia Palau pulling the strings and no game is boring with the Spanish ace on the floor, while I have always been a major fan of Sonja Petrovic because of her hugely extensive skill-set.

Most of all though, I am really looking forward to seeing if Katerina Elhotova can continue to shoot the ball well from outside, because I think that for Prague to win a game, she will have to.

Above anything else though, I will just love catching up with the women's basketball family once again as the fate of the EuroLeague Women title is decided.

And, as I know you were inevitably going to ask, I was going to go for UMMC who I felt were slight favourites to recapture their most coveted silverware. But, without the 'Golden Hand' of Taurasi, it has become the most wide-open Final Four in history and beautifully impossible to call!

Paul Nilsen

FIBA

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