Defending champion Serbia dominated its men's match against Germany at the Water Polo World Championships yesterday, but not by as much as it would have liked.
Aleksandar Sapic scored four goals and Aleksandar Ciric had three as the Serbians held out against a late German rally to win 11-7. After trailing 7-2 at halftime, Germany came as close as 9-7 in the final quarter before Ciric and Sapic combined to seal the win for the Serbs.
The Serbian team came to the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Center as clear favorite after adding last year's European title to its 2005 gold medal at the Montreal worlds. It also won a four-nation warmup tournament last month that featured Greece, Spain and Russia.
Vanja Udovicic, Danilo Ikodinovic, Slobodan Nikic and Vladimir Vujasinovic also scored for Serbia, which competed as Serbia and Montenegro at Montreal.
Germany, which qualified for Melbourne after finishing eighth at last year's European Championships, got two goals each from Marc Politze and Thomas Schertwitis and one each from Heiko Nossek, Tobias Kreuzmann and Lukasz Kieloch.
"We are satisfied with the first period, but the rest of the game we missed so many opportunities," Serbia coach Hagen Stamm said. "We let the German team back in the game.
"Every first match [at an international meet] is very difficult," he added. "This is a problem for us. I suppose the next game will be easier for us."
Or will it? Serbia will likely face a tougher Group A round-robin match tomorrow when it meets Italy, which earlier staked its claim as a finals contender with a 20-6 thrashing of Japan.
Alessandro Calcaterra, Fabrizio Buonocore and Fabio Bencivenga scored three goals apiece for the Italians. Bencivenga scored the goal of the match in the third quarter after he caught a dry pass and backhanded it into the opposite side of the goal.
Italy, which finished eighth in the previous worlds at Montreal after winning silver at Barcelona in 2003, got two goals each from Francesco Postiglione, Alex Gioretti, Luigi di Costanzo and Goran Fiorentini. Murizio Felugo, Federico Mistrangelo and Valerio Rizzo had one each.
In other early games, Zdeslav Vrdoljak scored five goals to power Croatia to a 13-5 win over South Africa, while Spain cruised past China 15-4.
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