Basketball: The big stage beckons for Anderson

Portobello's Rose Anderson, the only Scot in the current Great Britain women's basketball team, is ready for the game of her life when Standard Life Team GB play Slovakia before a likely 3000-plus crowd at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham tomorrow.

"It's been a long summer but I'm looking forward to it," said the 20-year-old former Edinburgh Kool Kat, who may be heading to play professionally in Europe next season following the completion of her basketball scholarship at Central Oklahoma University.

Typical of a person whose brother Kenny was a Commonwealth Games boxing champion in Melbourne four years ago, Anderson has fought her way against the odds into the final 12 of Team GB's renowned Aussie coach Tom Maher, who openly admits he did not expect her to make the team when she first arrived at training camp because her "defence was rubbish".

Not only did Anderson make the team but she has been in or near the starting five for much of the long campaign of warm-up games which began with a string of defeats but hopefully came together with a 2-1 series win over Israel in Tel Aviv at the start of the month.

Coach Maher is also eagerly looking forward to getting started: "I've always dreamed of having a team in such a magnificent tournament and although we're not in the finals yet I'm really excited to be part of it."

Maher warns however that Slovakia are dangerous opponents: "They have a terrific basketball IQ - they're full of good shooters and have a lot of quality inside-outside players."

To guarantee a place in the London 2012 Olympics, under the severe conditions laid down by the International governing body FIBA, Team GB women and men need to clinch their places in the top division of the European Championships.

The men have got off to a great start in their group by winning their opening three games, two of them away, while the women open their group games against one of the foremost women's basketball nations, who were eighth in last year's finals in Latvia and will be thirsting for revenge following their one-point defeat at British hands for the Euro B women's title last month.