ceded to "ZENIT" KAZAN
30 August Gazprom-Yugra and Kazan Zenit opened the friendly tournament named after. Lev Chailytko in Minsk. Despite the lack of collections, the Kazan squad looked very representative – Vadim Likhosherstov, Alexey Samoilenko, Denis Zemchenok, Fedor Voronkov, Andrey Surmachevsky, Laurent Alekno, Valentin Krotkov. The Surgut team included Artem Khabibullin in the starting lineup, Artem Kiselev, Oleksiy Pluzhnikov, Denis Chereiskaya, Kirill Kastylenka, Leonid Shadilov and Grigory Dragunov. It was noticeable from the start of the game, that our players are under serious load - three test games were played in the last two days, not counting this morning's training. Compared to the Surgut team, the Kazan team looked noticeably fresher and naturally won the first set with a score of 25:19. In the second game the game was equal until the middle of the set, then Zenit took the lead thanks to three aces by Surmachevsky. For us, Artem Kiselev, who played inexpressively, was forced to replace Maxim Troinin in the diagonal position, and the set ended with the same score 19:25.
In the opening of the third game, the Surgut team made a completely successful attempt to go ahead on Alexey Pluzhnikov’s serves, who replaced Troinin in the diagonal position - 9:1. Artem Khabibullin blocked Surmachevsky twice and, it seemed, Gazprom-Yugra has a good chance of winning the set. But the general physical background still had an effect - the Zenit team made a retaliatory spurt and overtook us at the mark 14:14. In an equal ending, the opponent’s powerful serve worked again - 23:25 and 0:3 by sets. Tomorrow Gazprom-Yugra will play with Moscow MSTU.
