LONDON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- China, France, Russia and the United States all seized their third consecutive group match win, advancing into the quarterfinals of the women's basketball tournament here on Wednesday at London Olympics.
Ma Zengyu and Chen Nan each scored 15 points to help China top the Group A after a 76-52 win over Angola. China led by two at the half and outscored the African champions 24-6 in the third quarter to blow the game open.
It is China's first time to play Angola in a match of world-stage tournament. Every player of the Chinese team scored and two of them finished reaching double figures. Ji Yanyan, leading scorer of China's WCBA League, made her Olympic debut in this quarter and finished with six points after seven minutes.
China, which finished fourth in the Beijing 2008, will play against Turkey on Friday before they face the United States, which they have never beat at the Olympics.
France was the first team to reach the quarterfinals. Emilie Gomis scored 16 points and Isabelle Yacoubou added 14, leading the 2009 European champions to a 64-60 victory over Canada.
Canada missed all 11 of the three-pointers it attempted in the tough loss but still got the chance of advancing to the quarterfinals, basically rest on Friday's game against their Americas rival Brazil.
Braizl lost to Beijing Games runner-up Australia 67-61 and failed to reach its first victory at this Olympics. Australia outscored Brazil in the first half to take a comfortable lead into half time, but had to face a late charge and narrowly escaped with the victory.
Brazil came back firing in the third quarter. After Australia opened the scoring with a two point shot by Kristi Harrower, the Brazilian went on a 10-0 run which helped them cut the deficit to 33-28. The Aussies extended their lead back to 51-40 by the end of third quarter.
Brazil attempted to take control of the game in the final period. Karla Costa scored a three point to bring Braizl with 4 points with just 16 seconds left. Lauren Jackson nailed both of her free-throw shots for Australia and sealed the victory.
Russia and the United States are the other two teams which stay unbeaten. Evgenia Belyakov scored 12 points to help Russia earn a 67-61 victory over host Britian while the United States beat Turkey 89-58 after surviving their toughest test at London.