2025 World Championships – Water Polo
- July 11-24, 2025
- OSBC Aquatic Centre, Singapore Sports Hub, Singapore
- Tournament Central
- 2024 Olympic Champions: Spain (women), Serbia (men)
- 2024 World Champions: United States (women), Croatia (men)
- 2025 World Cup Champions: Greece (women), Spain (men)
Ladies and gentlemen, the 2025 World Championships is finally upon us. Competition kicked off today with the first round of women’s water polo play. Follow along as we give daily recaps of water polo competition for each of the next 14 days, culminating in the gold medal matches on July 23 and 24.
The most anticipated and evenly contested match today was between Greece and Hungary, the respective gold and silver medalists at the 2025 World Cup. Today, Hungary narrowly got the best of its Balkan foe 10-9, highlighted by a 4-0 effort on Hungary’s part in the third quarter. Greece’s Foteini Tricha kept the Hungarians on their toes, scoring six of her country’s nine goals.
All the three of the 2024 Olympic podium teams, Spain (gold), Australia (silver), and the Netherlands (bronze), got off to dominant starts against weaker competition.
Australia racked up the biggest goal difference of the day, taking down the host nation of Singapore in a sweeping 34-2.
The #1-seeded Spaniards handled their first match-up, South Africa, with a similar level of ease, churning out a 23-4 win. After stepping away from competition for three years, Barcelona native Irene Gonzalez came back swinging, leading Spain with five points in her first World Championships match.
The Netherlands, meanwhile, defeated Argentina 25-6. In addition to being reigning Olympic bronze medalists, the Dutch also took the 2023 World Championships Title.
In the same group as the Netherlands were the 2024 World Champions, the United States. They played their first game against China, securing a healthy 15-7 victory. American goalkeeper Amanda Longan made an impressive 13 saves while in the goal.
In the New Zealand vs Italy match-up, it looked like the #15-ranked Kiwis were going to upset their #7-ranked opponents through the first half, leading 6-4 after the second quarter. Italy awoke in the second half though, coming back for a 14-9 win overall.
The other two matches of the day were between Japan and Croatia as well as Great Britain and France. Croatia fell to the Japanese in a 25-12 face-off, while Britain beat its southern neighbor 12-9.
Group Standings Through Day 1 (Points)
Group A
- Australia — 3
- Italy –- 3
- New Zealand –- 0
- Singapore — 0
Group B
- The Netherlands — 3
- The United States — 3
- China — 0
- Argentina — 0
Group C
- Japan — 3
- Hungary — 3
- Greece — 0
- Croatia — 0
Group D
- Spain — 3
- Great Britain — 3
- France — 0
- South Africa — 0
