TENERIFE, Spain, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese women's basketball team lost to their Australian counterparts 83-42 in quarterfinals at the 2018 FIBA Women's World Cup here on Friday.
China's young center Li Yueru scored a team-high 12 points. Shao Ting and Sun Mengran helped with seven and six points respectively.
Following their revenge on Japan in quarterfinal, China trailed throughout the match against Australia. The 27-point deficit prior to the fourth quarter was quite hard for the Asian Games gold medalist to make up.
China failed to restrain Liz Cambage as the WNBA All-Star center finished 10 points in the first quarter. At 14-7 down midway through this quarter, China were scoreless in more than four minutes. Australia set up a 24-7 cushion after the first quarter through a 10-0 spurt.
Australia maintained their lead over 20 points since the start of the second quarter. Point guard Li Yuan's layup with 2:52 remaining cut China's deficit to 20 points, before Australia showed no sign of sliding away following a timeout. China, shooting 24 percent, were outscored 42-18 into the halftime.
China suffered a scoring drought in almost three minutes after the interval, going 30 points behind, before Li Meng snapped China's skid with a layup.
China continued to come back into contention afterwards. Li Yueru's three-pointer play dragged the team to a 20-point deficit again with 2:41 to go, but Australia extended momentum to go up 61-34 into the final period.
Cambage had 20 points and nine rebounds in less than 20 minutes. Bec Allen added 16.
Australia will play the winners between Canada and hosts Spain in Saturday's semifinals, while China play classification games for five-eight places. Enditem
