22.06.2017 / UPDATED 16/07/2017

Olga Kamardina, FINA Correspo

Water Polo World League Super Final Men 2017ndent in Russia

Serbia and Croatia finished atop after Preliminary play of the FINA Men’s Water Polo World League Super Final to choose easy opponents for them in the cross-over match-ups.

2017 FINA Men’s Water Polo World League Super Final is in full wings at the Aquatic Palace of Ruza, Russian Federation. The Preliminary play is now over, as Competition Day 3 completed the charts in the groups and confirmed the quarter-final schedule.

Favorites predictably celebrated their third straight wins and got safely atop with 9 out of 9 points.

Leader of the Group A, Olympic champions and last year’s World League winners Serbia, gave a lesson to the USA, 15-8, and forced them land on third at 4 points, and have their next game against Russia. The hosts on their part came up second in the Group B, collecting their next 3 points and second win in Ruza. To close the group play, Sergey Evstigneev coached side beat Japanese, 12-5 as the Asian power turned out to become the only squad in the pool left scoreless. They closed the ranking, and are to expect a hard test tomorrow in the face of Serbia.

Group B’s reigning power Croatia, with four 2012 Olympic champions and nine silver holders of the Rio-2016 edition, confirmed their strong shape against Australia, 8-3, which went down as low as third with 3 points, and will see in the quarterfinals Group A’s number two Italy. Alessandro Campagna and C routed Kazakhstan by 14-6 and finish with 5 points to book Croats as their next rival.

falseCroatia overpowered Australia to collect 9 out of 9 points at the Preliminary play

FINA Men’s Water Polo World League Super Final 2017
Competition results / Day 3 / 22 June, 2017

Game 9. CRO  – AUS  8-3 (3-0, 0-1, 3-0, 2-2)

Game 10. SRB  – USA  15-8 (4-3, 6-1, 2-1, 3-3)

Game 12. KAZ  – ITA  6-14 (0-3, 1-3, 2-5, 3-3)

Game 11. JPN  – RUS  5-12 (2-3, 2-3, 0-2, 1-4)

falseHost team Russia will meet the USA to play out the trip to the semies

Final ranking of the Preliminary play:

Group A: Serbia 9, Italy 5, USA 4, Kazakhstan 0.

Group B: Croatia 9, Russia 6, Australia 3, Japan 0.

Competition schedule

Competition Day 4 / Quarter-finals

Game 13. 16:00 2A – 3B  ITA  – AUS

Game 15. 17:20 1A – 4B  SRB  – JPN

Game 16. 18:40 4A – 1B  KAZ  – CRO

Game 14. 20:00 3A – 2B  USA  – RUS