The United States won their third consecutive and overall gold medal after a finals win over Spain, while Hungary captured the bronze medal, beating defending bronze medalists Russia.[4]
The competition began on 24 July, and matches were held every other day. At each match time, two matches were played simultaneously (two during the preliminary round, two quarterfinals during that round, one main semifinal and one classification semifinal during the semifinal round, and the two classification games on the final day) except for the bronze and gold medal matches.[9][10][11]
Legend
G
Group stage
¼
Quarter-finals
½
Semi-finals
B
Bronze medal match
F
Gold medal match
Sat 24
Sun 25
Mon 26
Tue 27
Wed 28
Thu 29
Fri 30
Sat 31
Sun 1
Mon 2
Tue 3
Wed 4
Thu 5
Fri 6
Sat 7
G
G
G
G
G
¼
½
B
F
Competition format
The ten teams were seeded into two groups for a preliminary round and each group was played in a round-robin. The top four teams in each group advanced to the knockout round while the fifth placed teams and those ranked 9th and 10th based on win–loss record then goal average were eliminated. The knockout round began with quarterfinals, with the winners advanced to the semifinals, while the quarterfinal losers play in the fifth to eighth place classification semifinals. The two semifinal winners play in the gold medal match, while the two semifinal losers play in the bronze medal match.[12]
Draw
The draw took place on 21 February 2021 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.[13][14]
Seeding
The ten teams in the women's tournament were drawn into two groups of five teams. The teams were seeded into five pots.[14]: 6:30 [15]
Source: Tokyo 2020 and FINA Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Head-to-head points; 3) Head-to-head goal difference; 4) Head-to-head goals scored; 5) Goal difference. Notes:
^ abcSpain 2 Pts, +5 GD; Netherlands 2 Pts, −2 GD; Australia 2 Pts, −3 GD. Spain first and after that the head-to head results between Australia and Netherlands (15–12) came into effect.
