(Beijing, January 24)- Comments from coaches and players of both teams after Germany beat China 76-38 in the women's semifinal.

Peter Richarz (GER) - Coach

On today's match:

"I'm very thankful to have been able to attend this high-level tournament. We tried to compete step-by-step following the strategy we had laid out. I'm happy to see the progress made by the Chinaese team in such a short period of time. I want to say again how impressed I am with them."

On expectation for the final:

"Then Japan played against Canada,the Canadians seemed to stuggle with their shots,as did we. I expect to face Japan in the final but this not my express wish. My wish is only to have a good final and to have more chances and challenge to test our strength."

Schunemann Gesche (GER) - Guard

On her inpression of Beijing:

"This is the first time for me to come to Beijing and China. People here are friendly to us and everything is perfect. "

Liu Tiehua (CHA) - Coach

On today's match:

"We are a newly set-up team and our players are very young. The more opportunities we have to face the best in the world, the stronger we can become. As the saying goes, failure leads to success. Throughout the tournament, China's players have improved their wheelchair-handing skills and absorbed strategies from their opponents."

On the strategies for facing GER again:

"The strategies will be similar to those used in our last meeting. Results from training can be directly seen on court during competitions. On court , performance is based on our day-to-day improvement and how much we have capitalised on our advantages. The only difference may be that I tried to let more players get on court to improve our all-round experience from this day."

Annika Zeyen (GER) - Forward

On the match:

"All the matches are important for me, since we can directly benefit from accumulating experience."

On the changes to CHN's ttack:

"China was more powerful than in the last match, so we had to take extra care when defending."

On fewer mistakes from GER:

"We have practise for a long time, and improved our cooperation, which I think directly resulted in less turnovers."

On the opposition:

"Sure, we enjoy playing against strong opponent, because we can improve our performance and level of competition."

Gesche Schunemann (GER) - Centre

On her feeling:

"I'm so happy we have qualified for the final. We will all try to our best to secure the final win."

On the beginning of the match:

"Maybe we were so relaxed at the start that we let our defence slacken. Beside, the Chinese players came at us hard and got many chances to break through. Thankfully, their shot ratio was not so high."

On GRE's wheelchairs:

"I believe our wheelchairs are the best in the world. Maybe, this was one of our advantages in this match. "

Yang Chao (CHN) - Forward

On GER's strengths:

"Their tatics, skills and experience are all superior to ours. We must assimilate many things from them,such as styles of play and wheelchair-handling among others."

On zonal defence:

"In the third quarter, our coach called a time-out and had us switch to a zonal defence, due to the gap in speed between the two teams and our relatively poor coordination. It was felt a zonal defence might be more effective. "

On her three fouls in the first two quarters:

"My three fouls had a bad effect on me, driving me to be nervous. I thus restrained myself in the following quarters, both in attack and defence."

Zheng Ran (CHN) - Centre

On wheelchair-handling:

"I spend many hours practicing in the wheelchair. I experimented with the wheelchair and devoted some time so studying it. I also enjoy watching men's matches to pick up some difficult skills. I treat the wheelchair as my own feet. I love it so I'd like to control it well. Our team is newly formed, and the players may not yet realise the full impact of studying their wheelchairs. That's the main problem."