Rafael Araujo of Brazil scored 18 points to lead Spartak St Petersburg to a 63-58 victory over Olympia in Greece.

Looking to revive their fortunes after back-to-back defeats to start the EuroCup Qualifying Round, Spartak did just that on the road and can now approach their forthcoming games with renewed confidence.

Struggling in Russia's Superleague as well, Spartak decided to show coach Oleg Okulov the door and replace him with Igors Miglinieks.

The Russian team's prospects did not look good late in the third quarter at Olympia when Marios Batis connected from behind the three-point arc for a 51-43 advantage - their biggest lead of the game.

But a tap-in right at the end of period by Stanislav Sotnikov cut the deficit to 52-47 and stole the momentum for the visitors.

Araujo followed with consecutive jump shots, taking his tally to 18, and Milovan Rakovic added a jumper to cap the 8-0 run and put the Russian outfit in front at 53-52.

Olympia went back in front on their next possession, but Spartak veteran Anton Yudin drilled a three-ball and Dmitri Nikolaev hit a jump shot for a 59-54 Spartak advantage.

They stayed in front the rest of the way.

Araujo, who was nine of 15 (64.2%) from the floor, also pulled down seven rebounds.

Olympia are still in good shape with two wins and now one defeat.

Forward Georgios Tsiaras had 16 points to top the scoring for the home side.

Giorgos Bartzokas, coach Olympia:

"I was afraid that the team was to play bad because they can't play as a team when we have new players, like Guyton who replaced the injured Belser. When you scoring 20 % at 3 points shoot you cant win."

Igor Miglinieks, coach Spartak St. Petersburg:

"I said that Spartak had to try hard and needed a lot of luck to win at a very strong team like Olympia. We needed that win to boost our psychology after losing three games in a row in Eurocup."