Fouls cost the USA team (Carlitos Gracida, Andres Weisz, Nic Roldan and Mike Azzaro) dearly Wednesday afternoon in the opening round of play in the 2014 24-goal Fortune Heights Super Nations Cup at Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club as the defending championship Hong Kong team (John Paul Clarkin, Lucas Lalor, John Fisher and Santiago Cernadas 
) galloped over the Americans 13-6.
Under a steady rain, the Hong Kong foursome did a better job of controlling the ball and took advantage of far too many USA miscues, converting most of their goals on penalty shots.
Hong Kong scored early and often as they charged out to an 8-4 halftime lead. The US team rallied in the opening minutes of the fourth chukker, scoring consecutive goals to cut the Hong Kong lead to 8-6, but that was where it ended.
Hong Kong shut down the American offense for the balance of the game, outscoring them 5-0 through the closing chukkers and riding away with the 13-6 win.
In the second semifinal of the tournament, England (Jack Richardson, George Meyrick, Max Charlton and Tom Morley) will face Argentine (Pablo Dorignac, Tomas Ruiz Guinazu, Agustin Marquez and Martin Tassara) Thursday afternoon. The winner will play Hong Kong for the championship while the loser will battle the USA for third place.