Doha, Qatar, February 6, 2024: Making their first appearance in the women’s water polo competition of the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Singapore are founding out how tough it is at the top.
Their first game in preliminary Group C ended in a 32-1 defeat to Australia on Sunday, and it didn’t get any easier on Tuesday as they went down 39-2 to Hungary at Aspire Dome.
This gives them a goals record of 3-71 after two games, with New Zealand still to come in Group C before the classification rounds.
Hungary led 18-0 at half-time after winning the first quarter 11-0 and the second 7-0. Singapore scored twice in the third quarter through Ranice Yap Jingxuan but lost the period 11-2 before Hungary stormed away to add 10 more without reply in the fourth quarter to complete the 39-2 victory.
The Hungarians were faster swimmers, displayed vastly superior handling and passing skills and were physically stronger in the water; their shooting was super accurate, too, as they moved the ball into position for a clear strike at the Singapore cage.
Singapore goal scorer Yap said the players were far from downhearted.
“Generally, we are still quite excited to be playing in this competition because it is all like a learning opportunity and everything is new to us,” she said.
“It is the first time for us to play on the world stage and it is an eye-opening experience for us; it’s exciting to play every game and exciting to learn new things from the other teams.”
Yap said it was a great experience and honour to play against – and score twice against – previous Olympic Games bronze medallists Hungary.
“I think, because it is Singapore’s first time to qualify for this world aquatics championships, we take it as a learning experience to play against stronger teams, physically much stronger, and a learning opportunity to learn from the one-on-one techniques they do against us.
“Hopefully we can use these skills in our next competitions in other regions like the Asian Games and SEA Games next year.”
The 2025 World Aquatics Championships will take place in Singapore and Yap said it would be a wonderful opportunity to promote women’s water polo at home.
“I think we would like to show how much we have improved throughout the years and also put up a fight, and show our fighting spirit in the pool, and also once again gain experience from other teams.
“Also, we want to let most of the parents know about this sport because this sport is not that commonly known in Singapore amongst the women; it’s not a very community sport, so we hope to be able to show this sport to most females and to more young girls in Singapore so that they can pick up the sport and grow our water polo.”