New boys Montenegro hold champions

By Balazs Koranyi

BEIJING (Reuters) - Montenegro, the new boys on the Olympic block, held champions Hungary to a draw on Sunday after fighting back from being three goals down.

The former Yugoslav republic, making its debut in the Olympics after declaring independence from its union with Serbia in June 2006, has emerged as a force in water polo on the world stage, winning the European championships in July.

"We have to be happy to come back from being three goals down against one of the best teams in the world," Montenegro's coach Petar Porobic told reporters after the men's preliminary round game.

Hungary held the three goal lead in the third quarter but a defensive collapse allowed Montenegro to make a comeback and take a late lead before Hungary tied the game at 10-10.

"This is a recurring theme with us. We take a 3-4 goal lead then ease up before breaking the opponent," said leading Hungarian player Tamas Kasas.

"But it's quite something we could bring this back for a tie ... and I think we'll grow stronger by each game."

The U.S. team easily beat China when the American defense completely shut down the host nation's attack tactics and took the game 8-4.

"I think the main thing was defensively we played pretty well," said U.S. head coach Terry Schroeder.

"We had a couple of lapses where we kind of let them get back into the game but we had four quarters of good defenses and that's what it's going to take to beat some of these better teams," said Schroeder.

Serbia, Olympic silver medalists in Athens, struggled early as Germany capitalized on defensive errors but found their rhythm to win 11-7, helped by four goals from Dusko Pijetlovic.

World champions Croatia beat Italy 11-7.

(Editing by Ralph Gowling)