Spanish national women's basketball coach Evaristo Perez told a press conference that nothing is over despite the team lost to host China in a close match on Saturday.

The Chinese girls, to a thunderous crowd at the nearly full-packed Olympic basketball gym, beat a strong comeback to edge past the Spanish team in their Group B opener.

By this victory, the Chinese girls revenged their loss to the same rivals four years ago when they conceded by eight points in the Athens Games where Spain finished 6th.

"We were very anxious and it wasn't us. We were very irregular and at times we played badly," said Perez.

"We were expecting to lose the rebounds, but not for so long. We had too many unforced errors.

"I see the cup half full. We overcame a 15-point deficit and we were close to winning. The best thing is that we kept in the match, even playing badly."

China made a very solid 9-0 start to the event where they used to finish second in Barcelona 1992, and even extended the cushion to 37-24 upon the first half whistle.

But Spain, who beat China in four of their six previous matches, mounted a strong comeback in the second half and hit six of their nine three-pointers to cut the gap to within five points.

"It was 50-50," Perez said of the winning chances. "It was very close, but we lost because of the unforced errors and because we missed the last couple of balls."

"They (the Spanish players) have been in 1,000 battles, they know how to recover. We just have to give the importance that it has, it was just one loss in the first match. Nothing is over."

"We have planned the match since we were in Madrid. We will start from now to change our habits: food, timetable, trainings. The doctors, the physician and me are working together," Perez said of their next match against New Zealand on Monday.

China will host the United States in their second match of the preliminaries.

Source: Xinhua