China had its hope for the quarter- finals diminished after a stunning 79-77 loss to New Zealand in the Athens Olympics women's basketball Friday.

With their third straight loss following an opening win over South Korea, the Chinese women, who aimed for a top six finish in the 12-team tournament, have to go to 9th-12th deciders if they lose to the mighty defending champion United States in Sunday's final round preliminaries.

Zhang Fan seemed to become China's savior as she buried a three- pointer 6.4 seconds from the end to tie it at 77-all. However, Megan Compain, who scored eight of her 12 points in the fourth quarter, made a jump shot with 0.4 second to go to seal the second victory and a virtual berth in the quarter-finals for New Zealand.

Compain also made four free throws in four tries earlier to give New Zealand a 77-72 advantage with 37 seconds remaining.

Gina Farmer led five players from New Zealand in double digits with 19 points and Donna Loffhagen and Aneka Kerr added 18 and 17 respectively.

Sui Feifei had a game-high 21 points for China while Wang Ling came from the bench to add 15.

China shot 6-for-13 from the line and was outrebounded 41-32.

Source: Xinhua