After a two-month break since the previous round, the men’s competition resumed in six different European cities to see the three leading nations – Greece, Serbia and Italy – maintaining their respective groups’ top position after the fifth and penultimate round of the 2016 FINA Men’s Water Polo World League.
Group A‘s leader Greece visited Tbilisi in Georgia and beat the Georgian team 15-8 (2-2, 3-0, 5-2, 5-4) despite a difficult start, while Hungary visited their neighbour Romania and defeated them 15-7 (7-3, 1-0, 3-1, 4-3).
In group B, current World champion Serbia faced Spain in Barcelona to finally win 14-13 (4-3, 4-3, 1-4, 6-3). Montenegro proved too strong for the French in Herceg Novi (MNE) as the Balkan team scored 17 times against 4 (5-0, 2-1, 5-2, 5-1).
In group C‘s operations, Olympic title holder Croatia defeated Russia 14-10 (4-3, 4-2, 4-3, 2-2) in Ruza (RUS) and Italy crushed Turkey 22-7 (4-3, 6-1, 5-0, 7-3), who was playing at home.
Provisional rankings after round 5 (one more to go):
GROUP A: GRE 15pts (5W); HUN 12pts (4W, 1L); ROU 3pts (1W, 4L); GEO 0pt (5L)
GROUP B: SRB 15pts (5W); MNE 9pts (3W, 2L); ESP 6pts (2W, 3L); FRA 0pt (5L)
GROUP C: ITA 15pts (5W); CRO 12pts (4w, 1L); RUS 3pts (1W, 4L); TUR 0pt (5L)
The sixth and last round of the Men’s European preliminaries will take place on May 10, 2016. In the Women’s League, the sixth round of European matches will be played on May 3.
The Men’s Intercontinental Tournament will take place from May 10–15, 2016, in Yokohama (JPN) and the Super Final in June in Huizhou (CHN).
Swimming news courtesy of FINA.