DAY THREE: GROSER ON FIRE

The third cup day began with a “cheerful” from Lokomotiv, who gave the hitherto uncompromising "University" an assessment 25:10. Altaians in the next two sets gathered their courage, but they failed to put up serious resistance to their geographical neighbors - 25:22, 25:20. All the magic is in the failed “students” attack and the ratio of aces 8:1 in favor of the railroad.

The fight between two competitors in the major league "A" – "Samotlor" and "Tyumen" – turned out to be more stubborn and ended in four sets. The advantage of the northerners was hidden in the details: eg, Andrey Maksimov played extremely unsuccessfully against his home team for Tyumen, realized only 10 attacks in 33 attempts. Fedor Bessmertnykh also did not help out, which one 8 The th round started on Friday with Ural's home win over Fakel 25 in attack. Nizhnevartovians did not allow themselves such laxity.

The most interesting match was saved for dessert. Gazprom-Yugra rushed right off the bat in the match with St. Petersburg Zenit – 6:3 after Ace Shchadilov, 10:6 after two successful attacks by Ursov... The Zenit team is fine Grozer, which with a jerk pulls up its own almost equal 13:12, a series of mutual service errors – and a new breakthrough by the hosts: twice covered by the Sivozhelez block, Ursov scores - 19:14. Generally, result of the first set - 25:19 - looks quite natural.

At the opening of the second game with the score 2:5 Divish replaces the lackluster Camejo, Artem Khabibullin forms an ace, 8:5, but Grozer’s “thresher” is eating up the backlog again, 9:8. An equal fight begins, but two more effective attacks by Georg tip the scales in favor of Zenit closer to the end, 17:19. Through heroic efforts, Gazprom-Yugra takes out its opponent - 22:22, but I’ll eat Sivozhelez and two excellent serves by Antipkin decide the matter, 23:25.

In the third set, the opponents are level until the mark 10:10, after which the owners fail on not the most complex Chervyakov gliders. Time after time, Surgut residents cannot film themselves, and the guests take advantage of their chances in the final game, 10:15. It is done? Gazprom-Yugra fights for every point and reduces the distance to a minimum - 18:19. One more effort, 19:20... But again there is no filming on the Chervyakov glider, 19:22, and the omnipresent Groser, coupled with Chefranov’s mistake on serve, bring the set to 22:25.

In conclusion we will say, that Groser, properly, and made a difference in this meeting - why should the setter invent something?, if its diagonal is in perfect order? Surgut residents finally lost their welcome and had to come up with something extraordinary, because their diagonals didn’t help. On account 13:16 in the fourth set Antipkin came out to serve and gave his opponent another set of problems on the return, from which the owners never got out - 13:25. Something to think about on your day off tomorrow.

Let's celebrate with a spoonful of honey the excellent performance of Kirill Ursov (18 points, 59% in attack, 2 block, 52% positive reception), confident – ​​Anton Malysheva (60% in attack and the same in reception with smaller volumes), and 10 blocks performed by Artem Dovgan.

Head coach of VC Zenit St. Petersburg Alexander Klimkin: At this stage, everyone has one task - to fill out the squad ahead of the Russian Championship. In the first game we had Makarenko playing libero, two central ones came out, who haven't played with us yet (Chervyakov and Safonov, ca.. order.). Then the guys tuned in again - it’s always difficult to play with the Surgut team, very fighting team, capable of much. Therefore, we had to endure their onslaught and just do our job, which is what we got.

Finisher for VC Zenit St. Petersburg Evgeniy Sivozhelez: Victory, certainly, is important, like that, how we implemented it. But, of course, The coach doesn’t give us any special tournament goals, Now we need to find connections with new partners. We managed to find concentration at the right moment, we found our game and stuck with it. Thanks to my opponent for that, that they entered the game so excitedly, stirred us up.

Alexey Babeshin, head coach of VC "Gazprom-Yugra" Surgut: We got the mood for the game - in the first three games. I don’t want to single out anyone – we play as a team both good and bad. Actually, It’s just the mood we got, plus the first two games survived the reception. Then they failed in reception and there was no talk of any game anymore.