The Australian women's basketball team scored an important psychological victory in the lead-up to the Olympic Games, beating top ten-ranked China 88-59 in the World Challenge in Cairns.

The Opals are the only unbeaten team in the four-nation event after Poland staged a second-half revival to beat Korea 72-71 and stay alive in the series.

The Challenge moves to Townsville for the weekend with Poland and China needing to win and finish ahead on points percentage to have a chance of playing for the gold medal against the unbeaten Australians.

Aggressive half-court defence and consistent shooting were the keys for the Opals who led at every change, jumping China 28-12 in the first quarter and resisting the inevitable recovery to go to the long break 41-33 up.

The second half was all Australia as the Opals added the offensive precision missing from the first night 66-45 win over Korea to lead 68-50 at three-quarter time.

Best for Australia were Michelle Musselwhite with 20 points, Kristi Harrower with 12 and Natalie Porter 10 points, while best for China were Miao Lijie with 12, Chen Nan with 10 and Ye Li eight.

Captain Trish Fallon sent a scare through the camp when she limped off with a knee injury early in the first quarter but medical staff expect her to make a speedy recovery.

In the early game Poland looked gone for all money down 37-29 at half-time.

But a 45-31 rebounding advantage and a superior shooting percentage worked for the Europeans as they won the second half 43-34 on the back of solid contributions from centre Elzbieta Trzesniewska with 16 points and nine rebounds and guard Alicja Perlinska who had three of five three-pointers in her 14 points.

Guard Beon Yeon-Ma tried to save the Korean cause with six three-pointers in her game-high 23 points.

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