Water Polo in Khanty-Mansiysk

     The second day of the Junior Women’s Water Polo World Championship-2009 in Khanty-Mansiysk has come to an end.

     From the first minutes of the only meeting in group «А» Greece-Germany, Greek women took the lead. However during the first half water polo players from Germany didn’t let the competitors win and kept everybody intrigued. The key part of the match was the third period, when the Greek National team managed to score three goals and was at a good advantage.

     In group «В» the National team of Spain started the game against Kazakhstan with confidence, and by the first break had an advantage of 5 goals. Then Claudio CAMARENA’s trainees were doing not so well and let the competitors make the difference to minimum – 5:7. Though, further the Spanish girls pulled ahead again and finished the match victoriously. All 11 players of the Spanish team scored goals. Having won the Italian team in the tournament, the Australian team practically ensured the first position in group «В» and a place in quarterfinal. The struggle was really stubborn, and till the end of the match the game was with equal score. But when it was 5:5 the Australian girls made three goals in a row and completed the match in their favour.

     The favourite of group "C" - the national team of Hungary - had absolutely no problems in the game with the national team of South Africa, having scored nine goals already in the first period. The national team of New Zealand established a new record of productivity on the present tournament, having thrown 33 balls in gate of competitors from Uzbekistan. Eight water polo players of New Zealand at once (!) scored three and more balls – it is almost unique achievement. Absolutely young team of Uzbekistan is obviously not ready yet to compete with the teams which are four-five years elder than a half of the Uzbek national team.

     In group "D" the Brazilian national team in the first part of the game managed to show serious resistance to the team of the USA. Camila Albuquerque, the goalkeeper of the Brazilians worked perfectly in this game. As a result during the third period overweight of the USA team was not so great - 6:3. However then the Brazilian national team … stopped throwing balls into gate of competitors, and the difference in the score grew quickly. In the final match of the second game day the Russian national team had a difficult victory over the team of the Netherlands and provided to itself the first position in group "D", and a place to the quarterfinal. In spite that the Russians were sent off the field almost four times more than competitors (11 against three), two minutes before a final siren the hostess team confidently led the score – 10:6. In the end of the game the Dutch had a desperate spurt, but could only reduce the difference to a minimum.

     Konstantinos PETRAKIS, the head coach of the Greek national team: - The today's match for us is the first in the championship. And the first game is always a stress for any team. We played with Germany for the first time, and this match can be considered as a training before a difficult game with Canada.

     Jens REINHARDT, the head coach of the German national team: - The physical form of sportswomen of our national team considerably yields both to the Canadians and the Greeks who are much more skilled, and some of them play already on a level with adult teams. But the results of the games do not make me upset - I am glad that the gap in the score in both matches has turned out to be rather small.

     Larisa OLKHINA, the head coach of the national team of Kazakhstan: - Our main problem is that we still cannot have a proper training. In our team there are two players who recently played on the adult World championship in Rome, but in whole girls do not have enough experience yet.

     Claudio CAMARENA, the head coach of the Spanish national team: - After yesterday's match with Australia our girls are tired more than we expected.

     Fabio CONTI, the head coach of the Italian national team: - We are well familiar with the Australian team – some days ago we met at the general training. Besides, 15 days ago we met in Greece and won with a difference of two balls. We are approximately equal in strength, but today the Australians appeared to be stronger. Though as a whole I am happy with today's game of our team.

     Peter SZILAGYI, the head coach of the Australian national team: - The most dangerous competitors for our team are we for ourselves. Even the slightest discomfort can make us defeat to weaker competitor. However , today our team looked not bad.

     Andras MERESZ, the head coach of the Hungarian national team: - Unfortunately, I am not very glad that we have got in such an easy group. Further it will be not easy to get ready for the important games.

     Ryan WEIDERMAN, the head coach of the national team of South Africa: - As I’ve already said, we arrived here to learn. Hungary is one of the strongest teams at the tournament. For this match we did not have a lot of illusions, and we just tried to make the score gap grow not too quickly.

     Frazer BICKLEY, the head coach of the national team of New Zealand: - Yesterday we had a hard game. Today all was much easier. However any similar match is always useful because it let get new experience.

     Anastasiya SKOVPINA, the head coach of the national team of Uzbekistan: - Our team has been playing together for only one and a half years. These are our first international competitions. We came here to learn and first of all on our errors.

     Kyle UTSUMI, the head coach of the national team of the USA: - This match was important for us as we had to win. I am not too happy how the team worked in the beginning of the match, but then we managed to concentrate and finish the match with the victory.

     Frank DIAZ, the head coach of the Brazilian national team: - Our team does not have sufficient experience and for this reason many attacks turned out not to be very successful. But we tried to concentrate on controlling attacks of the competitor. And in the first half of the match it was not bad.

     Ilse SINDORF, the head coach of the national team of the Netherlands: – I think it was a good game. We had a match with a big number of good attacks and successful defensive combinations.

     Mikhail Nakoryakov, the head coach of the Russian national team: - The teams of Holland and Russia are approximately equal in strength, however today it seems to me, arbitrators allowed too tough game.









     Group «А»
     GERMANY – GREECE - 3:12 (1:3, 2:2, 0:3, 0:4)

     Group «В»
     KAZAKHSTAN – SPAIN - 9:17 (2:6, 3:2, 2:4, 2:5)

     AUSTRALIA – ITALY - 8:7 (1:2, 3:2, 2:1, 2:2)

     Group «С»
     RSA – HUNGARY - 2:24 (0:9, 1:8, 0:3, 1:4)

     NEW ZEALAND – UZBEKISTAN - 33:4 (7:1, 8:0, 11:0, 7:3)

     Group «D»
     BRAZIL – USA - 3:15 (0:2, 2:4, 1:5, 0:4)

     RUSSIA – NETHERLANDS - 10:9 (2:2, 3:1, 1:2, 4:4)