Favorites do not have enough victory – Newspaper Kommersant No. 68 (7513) of 04/19/2023

In both semi-final series up to three victories of the Russian Championship in volleyball, the clubs with the advantage of their site were one step away from success in the confrontation. Following Dynamo Moscow meeting with Zenit St. Petersburg, the second home victory over their rival, Lokomotiv Novosibirsk, was won by the winner of the regular season, Zenit-Kazan. True, it turned out to be very difficult, despite the fact that the teams played only three sets on the court.

Lokomotiv is a team, apparently worthy of sympathy. Throughout the season, she was tormented by injuries to the base players, and before the semi-finals against Zenit Kazan, he lost a very important player – the Serbian diagonal Drazen Luburic. And the young Ilya Kazachenkov, of course, did not look at least a more or less equal replacement even in the first match, in which the railroad workers still forced a fight on a terrible opponent. Zenit won in four sets, and the last two, won by them, were not without an ending.

Imposed “Locomotive” her “Zenith” and in the second meeting. In the starting set, however, not for long – until the moment when, closer to the middle of it, Mike Christensen came out to serve from the hosts. They squeezed out one point by requesting a video challenge, which nevertheless fixed an ace. And after that, the just quite convincing railway workers seemed to fall into a stupor: error after error. Their coach Plamen Konstantinov took his second timeout in an attempt to get out of the collective collapse already at the score of 8:13. And one could judge how events were developing without even looking at the site. It was enough to look at Konstantinov’s Kazan colleague Alexei Verbov standing next to her and his smile. Werbov liked everything. Plamen Konstantinov certainly did not like much of what his volleyball players did. And it’s not just about two really used by Kazachenkov transfers of the ten that sent him in this game setter Konstantin Abaev.

But in the next one, everything was much more interesting, because those who put an end to Lokomotiv were very mistaken. He had gunpowder, as it turned out, still plenty. And it was enough to immediately run ahead for a decent, four points, distance. Then Zenit reduced it, but the railroad workers who rode the wave of inspiration continued to perform feats. For the first time, they blocked the hitherto flawless Maxim Mikhailov with a block. They pulled out a dead blow from Dmitry Volkov… It would be terribly disappointing to miss such a set. Yes, it seemed to be simply impossible to miss: “Zenith” looked rested against a solid wall.

He destroyed it literally in one go. First, the Kazan libero Ilya Fedorov was lucky, who, hitting the ball, spun it to the floor in the opponent’s half. Then again blundered Kazachenkov. And the balance was restored. Everything in the game was decided by the “balance”, on which Verbov guessed right, releasing Andrey Surmachevsky from the bench to serve. He scored a point, providing Zenit with a minimal advantage, and another cool serve from Christensen put an end to the set.

The third set was no less interesting. In it, the rivals kept on a par with each other all the time, and Lokomotiv did not at all look like a team that had been cut down by a fresh painful failure. Again everything was decided by “balance”, even more protracted than the previous one. Lokomotiv beat off match point after match point, but still could not stand it when, with the score 29:28 in favor of Zenit, the indomitable Mikhailov fired heartily into the court.

Kazan took the lead in the series with a score of 2:0, that is, they lack one more victory before winning. But the third match will be held in Novosibirsk. Also one step away from reaching the final is the current holder of the championship title Dynamo. Muscovites twice defeated the St. Petersburg “Zenith” at home.

Alexey Dospekhov