World Championships: U.S. Men Fall to Serbia; Hungary Upends Croatia
There will be a new World Champion this year in Singapore, with 2024 champ Croatia knocked out in Sunday’s quarterfinals by Hungary. Still in the hunt, though, is the reigning Olympic champion Serbia, which eliminated the United States.
The U.S. lost for the first time at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, a 14-9 decision against the Paris Olympic champion. Instead of a rematch of the Olympic final, in which Serbia beat Croatia, it’ll be the Serbs against Hungary, which notched an 18-12 win to cap a surprisingly undramatic day of quarterfinals.
The day opened with Greece handling Italy, 17-11, in an all-Mediterranean affair. Spain disposed of Montenegro, 14-5, in the other quarterfinal.
That sets up the semis on Tuesday, Greece and Spain leading it off. Quarterfinal losers will fall into the 5-8 placement playoffs.
Greece jumped all over Italy, leading 6-1 after one quarter and 9-2 at half.
“It’s the mindset we want to keep in these games,” captain Konstantinos Genidounias said. “You have to start and let the opponent know that you’re here to win, and that’s what we did. The red card definitely helped us, but it’s part of the game and we took advantage of that. We took an eight-goal difference and we held it until the end.”
Greece celebrates a win over Italy in the World Championships quarterfinals; Photo Courtesy: Singapore 2025/World Aquatics
Aristeidis Chalyvopoulos scored twice in the opening quarter, and the ejection of Matteo Iocchi Gratta didn’t help Italy’s cause. Stylianos Argyropoulos tallied four goals, Efstathios Kalogeropoulos and Genidounias paired two goals with two assists each and Panagiotis Tzortzatos made 14 saves in goal.
Lorenzo Bruni had a hat trick to lead Italy. Francesco Di Fulvio’s 2-for-10 shooting typified the frustration for Italy.
Unai Aguirre was massive for Spain, stopping 15 shots and holding Montenegro to just two goals in the final three quarters. Bernat Sanahuja cashed it in with six goals to lead the offense. Alvaro Granados added three goals and three assists for Spain.
“We played really good defense, and that was the key,” Aguirre said. “We didn’t do it in the group stage against Hungary, so we improved in that way. It was tough in the beginning, they started very well, but once we had a difference of three or four goals, we came in clutch to score the goals and I am happy for the team.”
Serbia jumped on the U.S. early and never let up. Radoslav Filipovic stopped 10 shots. Eleven players recorded a goal or an assist. Four players scored twice, led by two goals and two assists by Nikola Jaksic. Strahinja Rasovic, Milos Cuk and Nemanja Vico scored twice apiece.
Hannes Daube led the U.S. with two goals and two assists. Chase Dodd and Nicolas Saveljic scored twice each.
The Croatia-Hungary affair looked finely poised when it was tied 6-6 after one quarter. But two goals each from Krisztian Manhercz and Adam Nagy in the second quarter led to a 5-1 edge for Hungary to create space it never relinquished.
Manhercz finished with four goals and two assists. Nagy scored three times and added an assist, as did Marton Vamos. Kristof Csoma made 10 saves.
“Our blocks and defense were faster,” Manhercz said. “We started to focus so much and that was the key. After the second quarter, we could keep this distance against Croatia because they started to come back in the fourth quarter, so we really needed the heart in that moment. We had amazing shots from Vendel Vigvari, Adam Nagy and Marton Vamos. But the key to today’s game was our defense.”
Zvonimir Butic led Croatia with four goals and two assists. Konstantin Kharkov added two and two.
