Australia, the reigning Paralympic champions, secured their place in the showpiece match after they beat the United States 68-58 in a repeat of the wheelchair basketball final at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics.

Australia’s Justin Eveson was the standout performer of the game as he scored an impressive 27 points.

Michael Payne top scored for the US with 17 but it was not enough to stop Australia getting to the showpiece event in Birmingham where they will being looking to claim their first ever World Championship title.

However, to be crowned champions, Australia will have to beat a strong French outfit who booked their spot in the final with a win over reigning European champions Italy with a 63-58 win.

France, who ended Britain’s medal hopes with a win over the hosts last night, took an early lead which they never relinquished with Sofyane Mehiaoui top scoring for the French with 19 points.

In the women’s competition, the the US progressed to the final after beating defending world champions Canada 68-58.

The Paralympic champions will now meet Germany in Saturday’s gold medal match in a repeat of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic final after Germany beat Australia 66-47.

There was better news for the British sides after two defeats yesterday as both the men’s and women’s sides secured victories to progress to tomorrows 5/6th classification game.

The men’s team beat Canada 68-51 in the 5-8 classification game and will now meet Poland who saw off Turkey 62 – 49 in their game.

The women’s team beat Japan 46-31 and will now play the Netherlands for fifth place after the beat China 69-48.

The win was an extra boost for the hosts as it saw the women jump up the world rankings and gives them a vital boost in confidence heading into future tournaments.

Britain’s influential Helen Freeman said: "It’s really good to finally have broken our eighth place position and getting into the 5th/6th match is a reward for all our hard work. 

"We are definitely in with a chance against the Dutch tomorrow as we only lost to them by one point so we will look to push them all the way.

"The results from the tournament have shown we can play and hold our own against the best teams in the world and we can keep working we can build upon this for London 2012."

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