The leaders of our championship changed, the finalists of the women’s Russian Cup were determined, and the men also played the first semi-final matches of this competition. In Europe and the world, Arina Fedorovtseva’s Fenerbahçe defeated the championship leader, Dmitry Musersky is at the top of the Japanese league, as is Vita Akimova in Italy.
Read more about this news and more in our review.
Results in Russian volleyball
New leaders of the Russian championship
“Fakel” suffered its first defeat in the league, “Belogorye” was not satisfied with the refereeing in the battle with “Loko” and “Dynamo” became the second leader: before the eighth round, the Super League is gradually taking shape expected: last year’s trio is coming out on top. The intrigue of the last round was the match in Kazan, where the guests from Novy Urengoy arrived as leaders of the championship.
Roman Empolov’s team won all six games at the start of the season and was the only one that did not experience the bitterness of defeat. “Fakel” repeated its best result of the 2018/2019 season in terms of the length of the winning streak, although the Novy Urengoy team did not play against the best rivals at the start of the championship. Zenit is the first in the segment. He again entered the match with the big team without Vladislav Babkevich, setter Sergei Grankin and finisher Vadim Yutsevich also remained in the team hospital.
How Fakel lost the lead in the Russian championship:
Kazan “Zenit” eliminated the leader of the championship. This loss is Fakel’s first this season.
In another important meeting of the tour, Loko received Belogorye. The match ended with a victory for the locals, in addition to another refereeing scandal. A controversial episode occurred at the end of the fourth set, when Belogorye led with a score of 22:19. Finisher Stanislav Masliev made a successful attack, but even before the ball touched the court, the second referee recorded that Lokomotiv setter Konstantin Abaev touched the net. The Challenge proved there was none, and the first referee awarded a dropped ball. Then Belogorod captain Pavel Tetyukhin received a yellow card for arguing with the referee after the whistle.
Pavel Tetiukhin
Photo: lokovolley.com
“We continue to play unstable: there are many failures. Today we couldn’t handle the reception. In general, I would like to highlight the “great” work of the referees, who make, it seems to me, deliberate errors against a team that, perhaps, is not doing so well and without problems. They also help here in Novosibirsk. They hand out yellow cards and whistle early. Many questions arise about refereeing in general, in principle in the Super League. You know, we’re not asking you to help us, but there’s no need to interfere either! Let’s play volleyball!” – said Volkov after the match.
In the Women’s Super League, Dinamo Moscow is gradually conquering first place. Konstantin Ushakov’s girls are undefeated in the Russian Championship, although in the Cup they interrupted their winning streak: they lost away from home to Lokomotiv Kaliningrad (0:3).
They managed to get revenge a week later, in Moscow.
The Kyrgyz Republic women’s finalists turned the series around
“Leningradka” and “Dynamo” turned their series around in the round of 16 of the Russian Cup and reached the final. Both lost their first games: the St. Petersburg team in five against Dinamo Kazan, almost recovering the score 0-2, the Muscovites against Lokomotiv.
We analyze the best matches of the Russian Cup:
The first matches of the men’s Russian Cup also ended in drama: Lokomotiv defeated Zenit-Kazan, Zenit St. Petersburg lost 0:2 at home against Dynamo. If in Saint Petersburg the teams led in the segments, in Novosibirsk both were very even during the five sets. And the referees, whose decisions caused misunderstandings among the guests, gave the flame to the match that was going out.
How are we doing in Europe?
Fedorovtseva attacks Türkiye’s leaders
Arina gave Fenerbahçe the victory over Vakıfbank in the Turkish Championship with 3:1 (26:24, 25:20, 21:25, 25:20). The fundamental battle for the future first place in the match on the tenth day meant the first defeat of the season for the home team.
Results of the main match in Türkiye:
Fedorovtseva’s team defeated the leader of the Turkish championship. The Russian became the best of the match!
The most productive player of the match was the finalist Arina Fedorovtseva, with 26 points (21 on offense, three aces and two blocks). On the losing side, the best in points was the Brazilian Gabi: 23 points (20 in attack and three in blocking).
In the same Turkish championship, Marina Markova is also spectacular. The finisher of the last match against Kozeyboru scored 29 points (24 of the game, two aces and three blocks) and gave Muratpasha a convincing victory (3-2). She is generally the league’s leading scorer with 218 points. Another ranking of the best women’s aces in Turkey is headed by another Russian: Arina scored 30 aces.
Marina Markova
Photo: Muratpasha press service.
Vita Akimova separates in Italy, Musersky is in Japan
Vita Akimova continues to collect MVP awards. After that, in the match with Vallefoglia, where the Russian scored 22 points, she was given another one, after the match with Firenze (25:16, 44:42, 23:25, 25:22). She scored 31 points: 28 from the field, two blocks and one ace. Vita continues to lead the Italian league scoring table with 211 points. Her closest pursuer, Paola Egonu, is 170.
Among the top ten is also a former Russian with an Italian passport: Ekaterina Antropova has 126 points. This week she played with Savino Del Bene (Scandicci) against Reale Chieri. Antropova has 17 points, including a block, two aces and 14 field goals. She is the team’s second leading scorer.
Among the leaders of the Japanese V-League and “Suntory” is Dmitry Musersky, who won the last match with “Torey”. The Russian scored 28 goals in 51 attempts (54.9% conversion), scored two aces and made a block. He is first in the league with 327 points in 11 games. The trio also has two finalists: Hungarian Christian Padar and American Aaron Russell.
Latest news from Dmitry:
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In Italy, Russian diagonal Maxim Sapozhkov returned to the Modena squad, having missed the previous two games against Padua (3-1) and Civitanova (0-3) due to back problems. The 23-year-old forward scored 13 points. He converted 10 of 19 attacks (53% conversion), had one ace and two blocks. It is true that so far his team is in sixth place after seven full rounds and lost three matches.
Five Russians adrift in France
The Volero Le Cannet girls remain fifth after two years of dominance in the French championship; Vita Akimova’s departure did not go unnoticed. In eight games they only achieved half of the victories, with 13 points. Although the big star there is Victoria Russu, recently arrived from Romanian Alba Blaj, she already has 128 points (109 in the match, 12 blocks and seven aces). Tulitsa’s Anastasia Lyashko has 81 points, 17 of which are blocking and 57 are attacking. Blocker Elizaveta Kochurina also stands out, scoring 49 points (26 from the field, 16 blocks and seven aces). Anna Kotikova has so far a modest 47 points, Alina Popova has 36.
THE NAIS IS OFFICIAL EDITOR ON NAIS NEWS