Volleyball Zenit defeated Dynamo and closed the gap with the leader of the Super League

In the central match of the 17th round of the Russian Championship, Dynamo Moscow lost to Zenit Kazan in three sets. Thus, Alexey Verbov’s team achieved an important victory, which allowed it to break away from the capital club and get closer to the leading Lokomotiv.

In the Russian regular championship, despite the fact that it is still far from ending, the time has come, in fact, for decisive matches in the fight for first place. By the will of the calendar, in the period from the 17th to the 19th round, all three contenders for victory in the regular season will meet each other, and Dynamo opened this series with Zenit. The Kazan team took second place, ahead of the Muscovites in terms of the number of wins – 14 versus 13. The leader in the super league is Lokomotiv, which in the 17th round won its 16th victory, not without difficulty, in five games, defeating Nova at home. located on the 12th line.

During the current season, Zenit has already beaten Dynamo twice – in the first round of the championship, simultaneously winning the Russian Super Cup, and in the pre-New Year’s final of the National Cup. Now, too, the situation was not in favor of the blue and white, who, as luck would have it, in the previous match lost their second scorer after the diagonal Tsvetan Sokolov, Denis Bogdan, due to injury. And taking into account the fact that Yaroslav Podlesnykh is not yet in the best shape, the team has problems in the position of finishing players. Until recently, Kazan also experienced serious personnel difficulties and was left without five volleyball players from the main squad, but by the 16th round they finally assembled the optimal composition.

Dynamo started as if everything was fine and quickly created a plus-four lead when Podlesnykh completed a beautiful and protracted rally. Soon, on Mika Christenson’s serve, Zenit reduced the difference to a minimum, but the home team again distanced itself by four points. Nevertheless, the guests dragged them into a tense ending and took it like a champion thanks to a block by Anton Semyshev and a pipe by Sam Deru – 26:24. The Kazan team was greatly helped by reservist Mikhail Labinsky, whom head coach Alexey Verbov released from the bench to strengthen his serve.

The second set developed according to a different scenario. Zenit immediately took the lead 4:0, and Dynamo was forced to constantly catch up. At the same time, the Muscovites somehow dropped Podlesnykh completely out of the game, and their coach Konstantin Bryansky replaced him with Kirill Kostylenko. In the middle of the game, the blue and white chase seemed to be crowned with success, but then Verbov again activated Labinsky in a timely manner, Artem Volvich scored the so-called passing ball after his serve, and then the Kazan team confidently retained the advantage they had achieved – 25:22. It is not surprising that this set was ended by Maxim Mikhailov, who carried out 8 out of 11 attacks in it.

Dynamo traditionally had Sokolov leading the attack, but his efforts were not enough. Zenit’s finishers Deru and Dmitry Volkov were superior to their colleagues in their roles on the other side of the court. However, the hosts fought to the end and in the third game they did not let go of their opponent, and at some point they even took a two-point lead. But Mikhailov was still on fire, then another Kazan veteran, Volvich, scored a couple of points, and now the guests again seized the initiative.

Volkov could have increased their advantage and practically decided the outcome of the match, but his hand trembled, and instead of “plus three” the Kazan team immediately received an equal score – 18:18. The teams fought again in the end, in which, in particular, their jokers Cheslavs Sventitskis and Andrey Surmachevsky distinguished themselves with aces. Well, everything was decided in the end by the ageless Mikhailov. The 35-year-old diagonal scored another ball in the attack, after which he served powerfully and made it as difficult as possible for the Muscovites to receive, and Deru did not make a mistake in the final game.

Thus, Zenit took the third set – 25:23. Now he has 43 points with 15 wins, and in the next round he will host Lokomotiv at home, which has 46 points. So Kazan has a chance to get the leader. In addition, the Novosibirsk club is still waiting for a meeting with Dynamo Moscow.

Alexander Ilyin