The Australian women's water polo team have snagged a spot in the final four of the world championships in Russia after a nail-biting 12-10 penalty shootout win over China.
After scratching out a seven-all tie with a weak performance in Kazan on Sunday, the Aussie Stingers made amends in the shootout as all five of their players scored.
China dominated for much of regular time, and Australian coach Greg McFadden admitted afterwards his side's performance had been disappointing, describing parts of it as "terrible".
The Stingers only took the lead for the first time in the match when Gemma Beadsworth converted the third goal in the best-of-five shootout.
McFadden said his team had not played to their game plan or their potential.
"(China) played probably above our expectations of them. Their extraman attack was good, their extraman defence was good, and on the flipside ours was terrible," McFadden said.
"We spent plenty of time talking about it, we knew what they were going to do. They didn't do anything different but we failed to execute and that was the disappointing thing about our game.
"We had a lot of opportunities early in the game and we missed them and we continually put pressure on ourselves."
The teams traded goals in the first quarter - including one each from Australia's Hannah Buckling in extraman and Zoe Arancini - before China added another in the second for a two-point lead at the mid-way mark.
Ash Southern added another for Australia 29 seconds into the second half, but was ejected moments later and China capitalised on the extraman opportunity to stretch their lead back to two.
Bronwen Knox and Bronte Halligan put Australia back on even terms, until China put on another goal on extraman.
Rowie Webster locked the teams at six-all, before the Chinese broke the deadlock in double extraman - when Bronwen Knox and Glencora McGhie both ejected.
McGhie took just 15 seconds to repair the damage at the other end and tie things up again.
As the match went to penalties, Southern and Knox's goals were cancelled out by their opponents, but when Beadsworth made it three from three and Lea Yanitsas held her own in goal, Australia got their chance.
Halligan, then Arancini put the final points on the board to push Australia through to the semis.
Australia now face Olympic champion and world No.1 USA, who defeated defending world champions Spain in an earlier quarterfinal.
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