Dubai: The 13th annual Fina Water Polo World League Men’s Super Final kicks off at the Hamdan Sports Complex on Monday.
Eight teams will battle it out in two groups of four with the round robin format deciding the seedings for the quarter-finals, where the top team from Group A will play the bottom from Group B and vice versa.
The event runs over six days with matches each day at 2.30pm, 3.50pm, 5.10pm and 6.30pm. Tickets to catch all the action are available on the door for Dh40 and admission for children under-12 is free.
The top two teams qualify for next summer’s World Championship in Kazan, Russia, while the winner receives $100,000 (Dh367,000) in prize-money.
Defending champions and record seven-time winners Serbia are the favourites followed by last year’s losing finalists, current world champions and record nine-time Olympic champions, Hungary.
Serbia face Montenegro, Brazil and China in Group A, while Hungary battle it out with the USA, Australia and Canada in Group B.
Hungary coach Tibor Benedek said this tournament offered important preparation for next month’s European Championship in Budapest from July 14-27. “We won the World Championship last year and next month we are organising the European Championships, that’s why this competition is very important to help us prepare because we have a responsibility to play well at home,” he said.
“I think we can play good games here and prepare for next month getting better game by game. Serbia are the favourites because they beat us in last year’s final, they are a great team but we are ready and improving.”
In 12 years since the tournament’s inception, there’s never been a non-European winner and a non-European country hasn’t finished inside the top three of this event since 2008.
However, Brazil coach Ratko Rudic said non-European countries were on the rise thanks to this tournament.
“The World League is good for developing water polo as it brings together the best in Europe with rest of the world. Brazil is building towards the Olympics in 2016 and this is a very important event for us to evaluate our performances.
“The results here for us are not as important as the quality of the games, we are the students and the European teams the teachers, but sometimes the students can surprise the teachers.”
