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SHANGHAI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The hosts China wasted deplorable opportunities to lose to the defensive-minded Australia 10-3, while the United States overcame defensive problems in a hard battle to beat Canada 11-8 on the second day of 2016 FINA Women's Water Polo World League Super Final here on Wednesday.
A 3-1 early lead in the first half and strong defense helped Australia to beat China 10-3 (2-1, 1-1, 4-1, 3-1) in a game where China wasted a sack of scoring chances, either hit the bars, or missed by inches.
China got off to a unpleasant start as they could not find the net in the first half. They scored once in the following three quarters. Rowie Webster collected four goals and Glencora McGhie contributed two for Australia.
"We played defensively very well, but we could not have missed that many opportunities in attack. When you look at the score 10-3, it seemed a big difference, but it is far from reflecting the reality," said the Chinese head coach Ricardo Azevedo.
"We had so many opportunities to score, so manys time we hit the bar, or missed the net by half an inch. We could easily get the scores but we missed most of them," he said.
According to Azevedo, it was his plan to exhaust his players in preparation for the Olympic Games.
"Maybe because my girls were tired a little bit, while most of the teams rested this morning, we trained hard. Right now I want them to be frustrated, tired and I try to do things to wear them out. We are preparing for the Olympic Games, we have to be better prepared and get stronger from the real competition. We have to learn how to shoot the balls at the net early from the competition," Azevedo said.
The game between the United States and Canada went into swing with quick attacks as Courtney Mathewson tore the net first for the U.S. team with just 22 seconds into the game. Canada equalised 23 seconds later. That set the tone of the whole game as either side never led by more than two goals (4-2, 4-3, 1-2, 2-1)
"I don't think we played very well today. The game was very close. We are concerned about how we played and we need to improve our defense," said Adam Krikorian, American head coach .
In other games, Spain defeated Brazil 10-6 (2-1, 2-0, 3-3, 3-2) and Italy edged Russia 9-8 (3-0, 3-3, 2-2, 1-3).
On Thursday, Spain plays USA, Italy meets Australia, Canada faces Brazil and China plays Russia. Enditem
