CANBERRA, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese women's basketball team suffered their third straight defeat to Australia in their one-week Canberra training camp but still gained experience and tested newcomers in the young squad as they prepare for the upcoming FIBA Women's Asian Cup.
On Thursday night, China was defeated 98-63 by the Australian national team. It is the third and last warm-up match between the two sides at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra since Monday.
Both teams used the matches as preparation for the Asian Cup which will be held from September 24-29 in India.
Unlike the first two internal teaching competitions, the third one was open to the public as a formal international friendly match.
At the 50,000-capacity AIS Arena on Thursday night, the packed home crowds cheered the Opals (the nickname of the Australian team) throughout the four quarters. The atmosphere was a test to for visiting young Chinese team, according the WNBA center Han Xu.
"There are a lot of newcomers to join the team, and there are younger players. There will be some pressure in this kind of scene. The other side played more open today than we did. We did play a little restrained, and there were not enough decisive shots. The next step is to strengthen the training," said Han, who just returned from the WNBA side New York Liberty to join the national team last week.
In the three matches in a row, China played best in the second as they narrowed the gap and led the world ranked third-place team 25-22 and 44-11 after the first and second quarters.
According to head coach Xu Limin, "playing one game [at a time] and getting one step of progress" is his aim at this week's training.
On Thursday night, Xu said they admitted the gap in skills. But she added choosing Australia, their group opponents at the Asian Cup, before the tournament was the right move.
"However, this team is a young team, and the personnel are constantly changing. It can be said that before the Olympic preliminaries, it is a brand new team. We also need to re-adjust in the game. Sometimes good and sometimes bad, but I think it is normal to encounter some difficulties," the head coach told Xinhua.
Under the new competition system introduced by FIBA last year, the Asian Cup serves as the first stage of competition for Olympic qualification, with the tournament's eight best teams offered the chance to compete in November's Olympic qualifiers.
China is placed in Group B with Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines.
A total of 14 players joined in the training camp, held before Xu names the final 12-woman list on Friday or Saturday for the Asian Cup.
Captain Shao Ting, who has also some WNBA experience, wants to transfer her experience in international tournaments to the newcomers in this young team.
"We hope to continue to exercise throughout the competition, and then to stimulate the potential of young players to let them accumulate experience in the competition," she said earlier this week.
China wasted a nine-point lead in the final quarter before losing to arch-rivals Japan in the 2017 Asian Cup semifinals.
