Marcus James had given the home nation a third-minute lead, but goals from Anton Kornilov, Denis Shchipachev and Marat Khairullin secured a 3-1 win for the Russians.

It puts them level at the top of Pool B with Japan, who defeated Switzerland 3-0 thanks to a Kenta Tanaka hat-trick.

Canada made a winning start to their Pool A campaign with a 4-2 success over rivals the United States.

Keegan Pereira, Gabriel Ho-Garcia and Scott Tupper all got their names on the scoresheet to give Canada a 3-0 advantage before William Holt pulled one back for the Americans.

Gordon Johnston re-established the Canadians’ three-goal lead in the 55th minute and although Ruben van Dam quickly reduced it back down to two, it proved to be nothing more than a consolation.

Today’s other match in Pool A saw Chile overcome Barbados 2-1 with Diego Ordoñez and Ricardo Achondo scoring either side of Akeem Rudder's equaliser.

Action in Tacarigua is due to continue tomorrow.

Pool A's schedule is made up of the US's meeting with Barbados and Chile's encounter with Canada, while Pool B's comprises Russia's clash with Japan and Switzerland's match against Trinidad and Tobago.

All eight teams will take part in the quarter-final stage, with the pool results set to determine their matches in the knock-out rounds.

Pool action will take place until Tuesday (March 28), with the quarter-finals then being held two days later.

The semi-finals are scheduled to be held on Saturday (April 1), before the third-place play-off and final are staged the following day.

The top two finishers will automatically progress to the HWL semi-finals, while there will still be a chance for the third-placed nation.

They will need to be one of the two highest-ranked third-placed teams from the opening second-round competitions.