MELBOURNE, Australia, March 20. MEN's water polo action commenced at the FINA World Championships with the initial day of group play.<\/p>\n
Group A<\/b>
\nItaly opened Group A competition with a 20-6 romp over Japan. Three separate Italians scored hat tricks with Fabrizio Buonocore, Fabio Bencivenga and Alessandro Calcaterra each tickling the twin three times. Meanwhile, Japan's Kan Aoyagi posted a match-high five goals.<\/p>\n
Serbia notched an 11-7 triumph over Germany in the other Group A match-up. Serbia's Aleksandar Sapic blitzed the goal a match-high five times, while Marc Politze and Thomas Schertwitis led Germany with two apiece.<\/p>\n
Group B<\/b>
\nCroatia tallied a 13-5 triumph over South Africa in the Group B opener. Zdeslav Vrdoljack led all scorers with four goals, while teammate Maro Jokovic notched a hat trick with three for Croatia. South Africa's Ryan Bell paced RSA with a hat trick of his own.<\/p>\n
Spain posted a 15-4 win over China in the other Group B match. Xavier Valles connected for a match-high four goals against China, while teammates Guillermo Molina and Ivan Perez also recorded hat tricks with three goals. China's Liang Zhongxing led his team with two goals.<\/p>\n
Group C<\/b>
\nGreece scored a 10-7 victory over Russia in the Group C opener. Georgios Afroudakis hit the back of the net a match-high four times for Greece, while Sergey Garbuzov led Russia with two goals.<\/p>\n
The United States dominated hometown Australia, 9-3, in the other Group C match. Kevin Witt and Tony Azevedo each tallied a hat trick with three goals, while Australia's Trent Franklin, Pietro Figlioli and Thomas Whalan accounted for Australia's scoring.<\/p>\n
Group D<\/b>
\nCanada secured a hard-fought 9-8 upset over Romania to open Group D play. Kevin Graham notched a hat trick for Canada with three goals, while Andrei Iosep paced Romania with a hat trick of his own.<\/p>\n
In one of the most dominant showings of the day, Hungary recorded a 21-5 victory over New Zealand. Gergely Kiss and Peter Biros each connected four times for Hungary, while teammate Marton Szivos also registered a hat trick with three goals. Timothy Grace paced New Zealand with three goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE, Australia, March 20. MEN's water polo action commenced at the FINA World Championships with the initial day of group play. Group A Italy opened Group A competition with a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[53777],"class_list":["post-14235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz","tag-2007-fina-world-championships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n