¡¡TAIYUAN, July 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Yao Ming was overwhelming, but the single NBA draft top pick was not enough to crib a victory for thesluggish Chinese team, who lost 82-65 to Italy on Monday.

¡¡¡¡Yao, who scored 28 points, gave hard time to Italy's center combination, 2.06-meter Cittadini Alessandro, 2.10-meter Galanda Giacomo and 2.11-meter Marconato Denis, who committed 10 fouls in total on him.

¡¡¡¡In earlier match, Australia ousted European champions Yugoslavia 79-68 at the international basketball tournament in Taiyuan, capital city of Shanxi province.

¡¡¡¡The best play of the night came at the third quarter of China-Italy match when Yao scrambled up a loose ball and hit a basket while he was sitting on the floor.

¡¡¡¡Yao, who was selected by the Houston Rockets with the No.1 pickon Thursday morning at Beijing time, got nine points at the first 10-minute quarter, and scored 16 points of China's first 25 points,to gain the lead midway into the second quarter.

¡¡¡¡Italy replied with their accurate long-ranged shots as the Europeans created open shots easily through Chinese shabby defence,buried 14 three-pointers to take the good of the game.

¡¡¡¡China's other two NBA players missed the match. The Dallas Mavericks forward Wang Zhizhi is in the United States, training for the Summer League, while the Denver Nuggets' center Menk Bateer injured his waist in training.

¡¡¡¡Detroit Pistons center Ratko Varda and Denver Nuggets rented player Aleksandar Radojevic were in the squad of the Yugoslavian second team.

¡¡¡¡Australia, who lost the World Championship berth to New Zealand,led for the most time of the match to beat the Yugoslavs.

¡¡¡¡The four teams will play a round-robin two-stop tournament fromJuly 1-7 at Taiyuan and Dongguan, Guangdong province. Enditem

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