Michele Timms is one of six Australian players who meet on the court Wednesday

Wednesday will be a big day for Australian women's basketball when six of the seven Australian players in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) meet on the same court.
   The Phoenix Mercury, led by Australians Michele Timms, Michelle Griffiths and Kristi Harrower, will meet the Detroit Shock and fellow Australians Sandy Brondello, Rachael Sporn and Carla Porter.
   The game will mark the first of three meetings between the Shock and the Mercury during the 1998 regular season and the first time that so many Australians have played in the same WNBA game.
   Being on opposing teams will be quite a change for the six players since they were all teammates on the Australian Opals' 1998 World Championship squad, which recently won a bronze medal in Germany.
   The expansion Shock has so far lived up to its name this season, overcoming a slow start to win its past six straight games and earn a 6-4 record. The team will be hoping to continue its good form against the Mercury and consolidate its second position in the WNBA's Eastern Conference. The Mercury has also been in top form this season, with a 7-3 record good enough for third-best in the league and second spot in the Western Conference standings.
   The matchups of Brondello and Timms at the guard spots and Porter and Griffiths at forward should prove to be classic confrontations. The game starts at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 8 (Eastern Standard Time) at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit, Michigan. The WNBA's internet site WNBA.com (www.wnba.com) will provide full coverage of the game.