World League
Since 2002, the world’s best water polo national teams meet in an annual season format and compete against one another in the sport’s first international league.
In 2007, FINA launched a new formula with a more standard format comprising only preliminaries and the Super Final for both men’s and women’s tournament. In the preliminaries, the competition is organised as a tournament system, two for Asia and Oceania, one for Africa, and a series of “home and away” games for Europe. A Super Final with eight qualifying teams concludes the competition, comprising one team from the Americas, two from the Asia and Oceania tournament, one from Africa and four from the European tournament.
Serbia obtains third FINA World League crown
The FINA Men's Water Polo World League concluded with an exclusively-European podium, with Serbia renovating with their 2007 and 2008 successes, by conquering the crown at home after defeating Montenegro 14-12. Montenegro, winner of the 2009 edition, picked up silver, while Croatia, which defeated Australia 9-7, settled for the bronze.
Fourth and fifth places were reserved for Australia and the USA, respectively. The USA defeated Spain 7-6, which had to settle for sixth place. China won over South Africa 11-5, finishing seventh and South Africa closing the rankings.
Serbia will confront Montenegro at tonight's Super Final
Day 5 of the Men's Water Polo World League Super Final in Nis (SRB) concluded with the victories of Serbia over Croatia 14-11, Montenegro over Australia 8-6, the USA over China 13-6 and Spain over South Africa 12-1.
The Serbian-Croatian game was without a doubt one of the most exciting of the tournament. Serbia triumphed over Croatia for the second time in four days, and now enters the final stage of competition. Croatia had a very good start, until Serbia took back the lead in the third period and kept it till the end of the match. Despite a large number of exclusions, the game unfolded within a fantastic atmosphere around the pool.
Croatia, Australia, Montenegro and Serbia win quarterfinals
As competition draws closer to the final stage, battle was fierce on day 4 of the FINA Water Polo World League Super Final, in Nis (SRB). The Croatians defeated the American squad 13-11. Spain and Australia played a tight game till the end, with the Australians eventually winning 6-5 over the Spaniards. Montenegro took a resounding victory over the South African team, which lost 2-21. China did a little better against Serbia, which triumphed 17-4.
Montenegro’s winning shots against the USA, Serbia wins over Australia
The sensation on day 3 of the 2010 FINA Men’s Water Polo World League Super Final was definitely Montenegro’s victory over the American squad. After a hard-fought game tied to 7-7, Montenegro confirmed their ambition in a series of penalties, defeating the USA with a final score of 11-9.
Serbia continues to look strong, winning over Australia by 8-6, to the delight of the home crowd. China struggled with the likes of the Spanish squad, eventually losing by 5-11. The Croatia-South Africa game generated little surprise since the Croatians dominated the operations throughout the period, conceding only one goal to South Africa and winning by 22-1. The player to score the most goals was Croatia’s Paulo Obradovic, with four winning shots.
Close win for Serbia against Croatia, Montenegro defeats Spain
The Serbian-Croatian battle (Group B) took the spotlight on day 2 of the 2010 FINA Men’s Water Polo World League Super Final, being played in Nis (SRB) from July 13-18, with the Serbians conquering their second victory at home since the beginning of the competition, with a tight 9-8. In Group A, Montenegro triumphed over Spain by 11-7, while the American squad defeated China (11-5).
Also in Group B, Australia secured a victory against South Africa with a comfortable 19-4 score. Australia’s Billy Miller alone scored four goals, this second round’s best performance.
Easy wins for Serbia and Montenegro, Australia upsets Croatia
As expected, Serbia and Montenegro comfortably won their first games at the 2010 FINA Men’s Water Polo World League Super Final, taking place in Nis (SRB), from July 13-18. In Group A, Montenegro (winner of the 2009 edition) defeated China by 16-4, while in Group B, Serbia (world champion in 2009) had a “training” game against South Africa, triumphing by 22-0. The remaining two games of this first day included a surprising victory from Australia over Croatia (10-7) and the defeat of Spain (7-3) against USA.
Boris Zlokovic was the best scorer of this round, with his five goals contributing to the successful outcome of Montenegro. The Chinese team only gave some resistance in the first half of the game (4-3 for the Europeans), but then the 2009 winners managed a 6-0 and a 6-1 in the third and fourth periods respectively.
USA in penalty-shootout win over Australia for fifth FINA World League crown
The United States of America claimed a record-extending fifth women’s water polo FINA World League Super Finals crown at La Jolla, California today.
It came at the expense of Australia, who suffered a second penalty-shootout defeat at the hand of the North Americans in four days.
Last Tuesday it was a 15-14 loss but this evening it was a 12-11 affair in a tournament where eight of the 24 matches went to the penalty stripe.
Australia trailed 4-2 at halftime and 5-4 at the final break, drawing level at the top of the fourth and even leading 7-6 with two minutes remaining.
As on Tuesday, Australia conceded a late goal to go to extra time.
In the 10-shot shootout, which saw a tournament-high nine goals, the seventh Australian shooter, Jemma Dessauvagie, had her shot tipped out by USA goalkeeping MVP, Betsy Armstrong.
The USA was ably led by the veteran Brenda Villa, already a three-time world champion and now a five-time World League champion.
Perennial rivals face off in FINA World League gold-medal game
World champion and reigning World League champion United States of America will play World Cup champion Australia for gold at the women’s water polo FINA World League Super Finals at La Jolla, California tomorrow.
The four-time champion North Americans put paid to Greece’s hopes of a second crown, winning 9-7 while Australia came back from 4-2 down at halftime and twice gave up three-goal leads to beat Russia 8-7.
The USA beat Greece 11-9 in the rounds and went out to 5-1 by halftime but allowed Greeec to win the final quarter 4-2 in a confident showing that augurs well for the final. It meant the USA was in its sixth final in seven attempts.
Australia has four medals from the Super Finals but has played just the one gold-medal game, losing to the USA in Montreal three years ago.
Australia, Greece, Russia and USA advance to FINA World League semifinals
Australia will play 2008 champion Russia while four-times winner United States of America will clash with 2005 winner Greece in the semifinals of the women’s water polo FINA World League Super Finals at La Jolla, California tomorrow. The teams earned the honour after the quarter-final round on day four of the six-day event at the La Jolla High School aquatic complex. Amazingly, all semifinalists are from Group B. The Greeks earned the opening spot when they surrendered 6-1 and 10-4 leads to allow Hungary back into the game, forcing a penalty shootout with a 4-1 final quarter. The Hungarians struggled to convert, missing three times with the last miss from captain Rita DRAVUCZ skipping wide to give Greece victory. The World Cup champion Aussie Stingers earned the second berth with a solid effort against the Olympic champion Netherlands — 10-7 — in a game where goalkeeper Victoria BROWN dominated with 17 saves. Russia dragged down the third spot, defeating China 10-6 after earlier leading 4-1. The host nation USA won a tense encounter with close rival Canada — 7-4 — especially as Canada led 3-0 after the first quarter. This is the seventh version of the women’s FINA World League with all six titles owned by three of the semifinalists.
World No 1 USA and No 2 Canada to battle for Super Finals semifinal berth
The top two teams from the Rome FINA World Championships will play in the quarter-finals of the women’s water polo FINA World League Super Finals at La Jolla, California, tomorrow. The world champion United States of America will play Canada, meaning one team won’t be in the medal hunt. Following three penalty-shootout matches the day before, it was all straight forward at the La Jolla Senior High School pool. The only upset was Hungary’s 11-7 demolition of Group A winner China. Olympic champion Netherlands downed world championship silver medallist Canada 12-9 for third spot in the Group A In Group B, Australia took its time to beat Greece 7-5 for seven points but had to wait until the last preliminary-round match to see whether world champion USA would claim the group. This it did by defeating Russia 12-9. The other quarter-finals also see some interesting match-ups with the Netherlands taking on World Cup champion Australia, China facing Russia and Hungary fronting up to Greece.
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