The CBA Summer League and Bohai Professional Basketball Challenge began in Qingdao of east China's Shandong Province on Thursday with hosts Qingdao Guoxin Double Star suffering an upset 69-63 defeat to Liaoning Hengrun.

In the second game, Beijing Shougang registered a resounding 64-56 victory over Tianjin Ronggang.

Earlier, the home side started their game against the Liaoning side on a positive note and showcased intensity and good skills early in the game. However, the visiting side continued to press further and at the end of the first quarter, Liaoning took a 15-12 lead. 

The second quarter saw the Qingdao team¸ led by Zhang Weiyu and Wang Qingming and playing in front of a partisan home crowd, try to claw their way back into the game. They managed to narrow the gap down to one point at the end of the first half.

However, the Liaoning team regained their touch in the third quarter and exploited a slew of mistakes by their rivals to extend their lead to nine points. 

Li Xiaoxu, who scored a team-high 17 points, continued to shine for the visitors and hit a key 3-pointer as Qingdao’s over-dependence on Wang Qingming, who had a game-high 20 points, cost them the game in the end.  

Liaoning's head coach Guo Shiqiang said that the summer league is mainly about testing young players and his team have trained hard, showing a lot of improvement.

Qingdao's head coach Wu Qinglong mentioned that his side has prioritized physical training over the past few weeks and started technical and tactical training a bit late, which was evident in the game.

In the game between Beijing and Tianjin, the two teams battled it out for a neck and neck 30-31 in the first half, but in the third quarter, Beijing took a convincing lead and got home without much difficulty.

Beijing’s Wang Weihui scored a game-high 15 points while for the losing side, Meng Xianglong scored a team-high 13 points.