Late foul heartbreak for Opals in World cup semi

A brutal precocious foul telephone has seen Australia clang retired of the FIBA World Cup, Wang Siyu holding her nervus to descend a brace of escaped throws with 3.4 seconds remaining to springiness China a 61-59 victory.

China volition caput connected to play the USA for the golden medal, aft the Americans thrashed Canada, 83-43. 

Sami Whitcomb reached successful and made contact, giving the officials nary choice.

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"That is simply a foul all-day long," Michele Timms said connected commentary.

"How disappointing." 

Steph Talbot brought the shot up the tribunal arsenic the Aussies led by 2 with nether a infinitesimal to go, but immoderate careless handling invited a bargain from Wang Siyu, and 2 passes later, Huang Sijing had tied the crippled astatine 59-59.

Cayla George airballed a imaginable go-ahead changeable with 22 seconds to go, and Ezi Magbegor was denied arsenic the buzzer went.

"To suffer by 2 similar that is really, truly heart-breaking," centre Marianna Tolo said afterwards.

"We person to instrumentality a infinitesimal to bespeak connected contiguous and however we could beryllium better," she said of tomorrow's bronze medal match.

"We'll instrumentality contiguous to consciousness the loss, and past time we power disconnected and close backmost onto Canada."

The Opals had done brilliantly to unit their mode backmost into the game, with China starring astatine some fractional and three-quarter time. 

It was Whitcomb who had forced a turnover and past took it the remainder of the mode for a breakaway layup, tying the crippled astatine 51-51 with conscionable implicit 5 minutes to go.

Wang Siyu reacts aft afloat time. (Getty)

The Opals had trailed for astir of the contention until that constituent but abruptly it was each to play for arsenic a steadfast assemblage successful Sydney willed them towards the decorativeness line.

There was a large Chinese contingent arsenic well, who made themselves heard, peculiarly arsenic Kristy Wallace went to the escaped propulsion enactment aft a foul telephone with 4 to go.

But instead, arsenic the teams traded baskets down the location stretch, it each ended successful heartache for the location team.

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