Australia's women's water polo team has suffered a gut-wrenching penalty shootout loss to Italy in the third-placed playoff at the FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia.
The Stingers went down 12-10 in the penalty shootout on Friday night to be relegated to fourth place after the teams had been locked at seven-all at the conclusion of regulation time.
Italy converted all five of their penalty shots to take home the hardware following a physical contest.
"We should have won the game before the penalties," lamented Australian head coach Greg McFadden.
"We had a lot of good opportunities early in the game and we didn't convert them.
"It was disappointing because our game was quite good but our execution was poor.
"The girls tried hard. We didn't give in and that's a positive."
Australian captain Bronwen Knox struggled to hide her disappointment at the loss.
"We had our opportunities in the game but we just didn't put them away and to finish on a penalty shootout absolutely sucks," Knox said.
"There's just no other words for it. Everybody put their heart into it but we just missed our opportunities in the game."
The Australian men's team, who are out of medal contention, will play for seventh position against the USA on Saturday (9pm AEST).
Finishing seventh will give the Australians their best place at a world championship since Barcelona in 2003.
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