Serbia&Montenegro - Australia 41-18

Split, CROATIA, December 2, 2003 (www.wwhc2003.hr) - From the very beginning the difference in quality was evident, and the final score of 41-18 is the best evidence of that. Batinic, Popovic, Dokic and Ognjenovic all scored five goals for the winners, while Shelley Roy led the way for Australia with five goals as well.

Zoran Ivic (S&M coach): "The difference in quality was evident, and the result just showed that. Some of my players showed a lack of seriousness in the second half, but after all, I am satisfied with this game."

Ljiljana Knezevic (S&M player): "It's good that we had this kind of game at the start of the competition, it was a good opportunity for all the players to feel the ball. We started well, but we have much harder games ahead of us."

Niklas Harris (Australian coach): "We played well for ten minutes, but after that our opponents started playing better and were in complete control of the game. We came here to grab a few points and hopefully we'll manage to do that."

Jovana Milosevic (Australia): "We played as well as we can, and hopefully the results will be better in the games ahead of us."

16th Women's World Handball Championship - Day 1

Group A: Serb&Mont - Australia 41-18, Croatia - Brazil 32-25, France - Spain 28-25
Group B: Russia - Korea 28-27, Czech Republic - Uruguay 47-16, Austria - Angola 29-19
Group C: Japan - Tunisia 30-24, Norway - Ukraine 29-30, Romania - Argentina 43-13
Group D: Hungary - Ivory Coast 43-25, Slovenia - China 34-26, Denmark - Germany 20-20