Olympics-Basketball-Serbia rout Australia to reach first final

* Serbia only team with losing record to advance * Australia to play for bronze (Adds quotes) By Steve Keating RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Serbia stormed to an early lead then held on to rout Australia 87-61 on Friday sending the Olympic debutants through to the gold medal game of the men's basketball tournament for the first time as an independent nation. Tiny Serbia will now take on basketball superpower United States on Sunday in a David versus Goliath final. "It is amazing," Serb centre Miroslav Raduljica. "It is the first time that Serbia as a basketball team is in the Olympic Games and first time we move to finals. "It is an amazing team I think. For all the guys, the country, the fans, everybody who feels Serbia is an amazing team." The only team with a losing record (2-3) to make it out of the group stage, Serbia caught Australia flat-footed holding the misfiring Boomers to just five points in the opening quarter, then put them in a 35-14 halftime hole they could never escape. Australia, who had the better of the Serbs in preliminary play, taking a 95-80 win, were simply overwhelmed in the rematch, trailing by as much as 30 in the final quarter. Milos Teodosic paced Serbia with 22 points while Stefan Markovic had 14. "They got us on the back foot from the start of the game," said Australia coach Andrej Lemanis. "And for whatever reason, they could dictate the terms in the first quarter. "Semi-final Olympic Games, it's hard to swallow. This is really the first time we have been challenged in the tournament." While Serbia will be making their first appearance in the gold medal game, they bring a deep basketball pedigree to the final. As part of the rump of former Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, they beat the U.S. in the quarter-finals of the 2002 world championships on the way to the gold, and were beaten for a silver by the Americans at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Serbia won their first medal at a World Cup as an independent nation in 2014 again taking silver. (Additional reporting Mary Milliken; Editing by Bill Rigby)