Fina World Championship 2013: Serbia going head to head with Montenegro in quarterfinals

POLO AIR INDONESIA, Serbia will face Montenegro in what will be a hotly  contested quarterfinal on Tuesday following the qualification round of  the FINA Men’s Water Polo World Championships at the Bernat Picornell Pool today. Serbia sent Romania packing for home with a 13-5 scoreline and Montenegro defeated Canada 12-4 to set up a tantalising encounter. 

The qualifiers were decisive, unlike the women’s matches the day before where European champion Italy and World League champion China departed the scene.

The other quarterfinals have Greece facing Hungary, Croatia against Australia and Spain playing Italy. Greece started the day’s proceedings with a 13-5 win over South Africa with Alexandros Gounas (GRE) topping the scorers.

Montenegro followed against Canada with Aleksandar Ivovic (MNE) netting three for 13 this championship. Centre forward Nicolas Constantin-Bicari (CAN) finished with eight goals and huge respect.

Olympic champion Croatia repulsed the challenge of New Zealand 21-4. Petar Muslim and Sandro Sukno scored five each for the Europeans. Spain helped United States of America to the airport with a 10-6 margin thanks to Albert Espanol with four goals and Guillermo Molina with three. The championship also saw the last of the talented centre forward John Mann (USA), who scored 10 goals.

Serbia settled for a 13-5 win over Romania with five Serbian players scoring twice and the match’s best Nicolae Diaconu (ROU). Hungary had to come back from 4-2 down at quarter time to send off Kazakhstan 16-7. Five Hungarians scored twice and Sergey Gubarev (KAZ) fired in three. Will this be the last we see of Sydney 2000 Olympic silver medallist Russian goalkeeper Nikolay Maximov (KAZ) at this level? He is 41, after all!

Italy, the London Olympics silver medallist, defeated China 11-3 with Alex Georgetti bagging four goals. Chufeng Zhang and Zhongxing Liang left as China’s best scorers with five each.

In the final match of the day, Australia downed Germany 8-4 with three players scoring twice for the Aussie Sharks. Heiko Nossek, who scored Germany’s first two goals, departs as his team’s leading scorer with 10.

Tuesday quarterfinal programme:

15:30  GRE     v          HUN              
17:00  CRO     v          AUS
20:15  MNE    v          SRB
21:45  ESP     v          ITA