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Genoa managed to get their first win of the season with Marco Borriello's hat-trick despite playing almost the entire second half with 10 men.
The Friulani had a shocking start to the campaign, but after that 5-0 defeat to Napoli it has been plain sailing with victories over Juventus and Reggina, all inspired by Antonio Di Natale. Genoa were still shaking off their promotion hangover with just one goal and three points going into this game. It was a special match for Fabio Quagliarella, as the ex-Sampdoria star returned to Marassi for the first time since his summer move.
Udinese's record here was appalling, as they had not scored in their last five visits in all competition. Genoa lost Fabiano in the warm-up, so he was replaced by Alessandro Lucarelli.
After seven minutes Handanovic was saved by the bar, as he fingertipped a rocket of a Marco Borriello free kick on to the underside of the woodwork.
Genoa took the lead with a bizarre goal. Handanovic - perhaps concerned by the driving rain - only flapped Juric's free kick out to Borriello for a volley from nine yards.
Borriello nearly made it 2-0 soon after, but incredibly hit the bar when it might have been easier to net from Leon's assist.
At the other end, Udinese struggled to create chances in the first half, but did go close when Rubinho parried a point-blank range strike from Ghanaian Gyan Asamoah.
Handanovic was having a nightmare at Marassi and missed Leon's corner kick, but Gaetano De Rosa nodded over an empty goal.
Udinese were simply asleep and that was obvious by the second Genoa goal. Once again it was Borriello, who was able to get his glancing header on a corner kick relatively undisturbed.
However, Genoa shot themselves in the foot, as moments later Rubinho mistimed his run and handled the ball outside the area, so the red card was inevitable. There was controversy, as although his feet were over the line, the handling offence appeared to be right on it. Nonetheless, Rubinho was off and Alessio Scarpi's first intervention was to take the ball out the back of the net, as Antonio Di Natale's free kick was deflected into the path of Asamoah from seven yards.
Di Natale went round the goalkeeper to equalise, but it was disallowed for an extremely tight offside decision.
The referee pointed to the spot for a Cristian Zapata nudge on Borriello, who had sprung the offside trap to run into the area. Borriello has scored all of Genoa's goals this season and converted a central penalty for his hat-trick.
It still wasn't enough to relax, as Udinese made it 3-2 soon after. Giandomenico Mesto's shot from the edge of the box took a decisive deflection off De Rosa to leave Scarpi stranded.
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