Milovan Rajevac has praised Serbia despite their defeat to Ghana in the opening Group D match at the World Cup.

Striker Asamoah Gyan scored from a spot kick in the 84th minute to hand the Black Stars a 1-0 victory in Pretoria on Sunday.

Serbia had some descent chances at goal but were denied by Ghana's goalkeeper Richard Kingson.

And Rajevac, himself a Serbian was quick to congratulate the losers for fighting till the end despite finishing the game with 10 men following the dismissal of Aleksandar Lukovic.

"I congratulate Serbia, they played very well, and of course I congratulate my team. They played well until the end,” he said.

The Ghana coach hopes his opponents for the opening day clash still managed to sail through with two more matches to go in the group phase.

"Serbia are a very good team, with very good individual players. They played a wise game today, perhaps we got more lucky than them because we scored one goal and we obtained three points today. I hope Serbia can pick up six points from their next two games."

Rajevac, who was up against his friend and compatriot Radomir Antic on the Serbia bench, added: "This was a very difficult game, difficult to coach. There were two different styles of playing, we had to be focused throughout the game, so it was a very difficult game from a technical point of view. We had to maintain our level of concentration to win such a game."