DAY FIVE: FIGHT WITH BARNAUL

here you go, properly, and that's all - in Surgut, the first round of the preliminary part of the Cup of Russia in the zone 2. It ended not quite standardly - a stubborn duel between the hosts and the Barnaul "University". And before that, Zenit and Lokomotiv expected to deal with Tyumen and Samotlor, respectively: true, Tyumen managed to "squeeze" one party from St. Petersburg.

Once again, Nikita Venediktov chalked up the lion's share of Tyumen's points, Zenit played much more evenly - five players scored double-digit points at once. Generally, this was the higher class of the silver medalist of the national championship. After losing the first game, Zenit took the threads of the game into their own hands and brought the matter to victory, having played the entire match without substitutions.

In the same spirit - with one six - Lokomotiv defeated Samotlor in three sets, whose head coach is Eduard Merman, in front of, involved all his players. Everyone made their own conclusions, and then Gazprom-Yugra and Universitet entered the stage for the final show. An enchanting number of errors on the pitch (23 per match) did not allow the hosts to score break balls on a regular basis, and that's exactly what, as known, the key to success. None of the first four games ended with a difference of more than two points., and only at the tie-break did the Surgut team gain the upper hand more or less confidently – 15:10. curious, that in this match the representative of the Superleague also played almost one six, except that Maxim Troynin replaced Artem Dovgan in the end, but the delegate from the major league "A" varied the composition in a wider range.

Surgut team captain Kirill Ursov did not play, and the diagonal one - Alexander Chefranov - finally showed a grandmaster result, 29 points (including 6 blocks!) and 61 percentage of attacks. His counterpart Sergei Bragin lost quite a bit - 5 blocks, 27 points at 43 percentage of sales. On the whole so, little by little, and the superiority of Gazprom-Ugra was developing: won a block a little, a little - attack, received a little worse, but the aces were made twice as much - 7 against 3, but they made their own mistakes exactly on 4 more. All is well match, that ends well" – they could, if anything, and concede in four games (29:27).

The overall results at the equator of the tournament distance are predictable - three tickets to the semi-finals are still reserved for the representatives of the Superleague. Major league teams "A" will still have the opportunity to try to change something - in the second round, which starts in Novosibirsk 2 October.

Head coach of VK "University" Barnaul Ivan Voronkov: Last day, almost everything is decided, despite, that there will be another tour. Next will pass, probably, representatives of the Super League, naturally. Therefore, the owners gave everyone the opportunity to play, not the main squad was against us. Somewhere they underestimated us, somewhere we played well. The game turned out to be interesting and very important for us in terms of preparing for the season..

Alexey Babeshin, head coach of VC "Gazprom-Yugra" Surgut: Respect guys, that did not give up. Chefranov burst into flames, big plus for him, and finally, somewhere, Shchadilov began to feel for something. Really want to, to play at a high level. In general, the tour turned out to be quite difficult for us., there are claims to the team on yesterday's game with Lokomotiv. Important, so that the guys hear - and me, and head coach, and Vladimir Nikolaevich (Kondusova - approx.. order.). By and large,, I am only satisfied with the mood, the rest - no.

Captain of the Gazprom-Yugra VK Kirill Ursov: Sure, I wanted to show the maximum game, and if we showed it, then you wouldn't have to play five games. Somewhere we are still skidding, feel out of place. We will add. I don't think, that there was an underestimation of the opponent, although Barnaul played really well, it's better, than we expected. As for the tour in general, then there are two results.. Played at home and could win all matches. But I hope, that we still compensate for the lack of victories in Novosibirsk.