BEIJING, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - NBA superstar Yao Ming says China's chances of doing well at next year's Olympics could vanish unless the team shapes up and improves on this year's poor form.

The host nation had been hoping for at least a semi-final finish in the basketball tournament but those ambitions have been revised downwards, particlarly after a just-completed series againt low-quality opposition.

"The rivals of our recent warm-ups are not big teams," the Houston Rockets star said, refering to two Australian clubs.

"But we still failed to play our game throughout the matches. This is the biggest problem right now for the national team."

Yao told the China Daily that any chance of doing well at the Olympics could disappear entirely if the team failed to find consistency.

The superstar centre says the Chinese team is realistically hoping for a top eight finish now, rather than a semi-final spot, but even that could prove too high.

"At the Beijing Olympics, we will have totally different teams to play and all the matches are played successively," he said.

"We have to perform our best in a consistent way if we want to win and advance. If we lose some matches due to lack of concentration, we might have no chance at all."

He also has high hopes for NBA draftee Yi Jianlian, the new Milwaukee Bucks signing, who joined Yao back in China this month to play with a national team that struggled to an unconvincing 5-1 record against the two Australian clubs.

"He showed how good basketball he could play. I am sure he will give something more to the team after playing in the NBA season," said Yao.