Zenit-Kazan has long secured victory in the regular season and, together with three other teams (Lokomotiv, Belogorye, Dynamo), won a direct ticket to the quarterfinals, which starts only on March 28. Nova registered in 11th place a few rounds ago and will play the qualifying round of the playoffs. Now both teams are systematically preparing for the relegation matches. This is probably why Alexey Verbov fielded the most combative squad in a match that has no tournament significance.
In the opening game, the Kazan team did not leave any chances for their rivals. Zenit's binder Mike Christenson passed quickly and unpredictably, and his partners did not let him down, having implemented 76% of attacks. Both Sam Deru, Dmitry Volkov, and Maxim Mikhailov scored one ball after another. Kazan were especially good at counterattacks, scoring a lot after their bright defense. Mikhailov put an end to the game with a block – 25:14.
Christenson scored two consecutive aces with gliders at Savely Pozdnyakov, making the score 4-0 and forcing Nova coach Oleg Sogrin to take a timeout. During the game, the guest coach released Oleg Terentyev, a binder, and Vitaly Papazov, a diagonal, onto the court, who helped his team reduce the gap to -3 (10:13). But then his counterpart Mikhailov got down to business: several powerful attacks and an ace serve to libero Nikita Eremin – 17:11. Volkov and Christenson alternately caught Papazov with a block and completed the set – 25:13.
The score 4:0 was repeated at the beginning of the third set – Artyom Volvich closed Pozdnyakov's attack, Mikhailov made an ace, and Christenson punished his colleague from Nova Arash Dosange for an unsuccessful pass, scoring a passing ball. A comfortable score allowed Verbov to start substitutions: Kirill Kletz and Mikhail Labinsky appeared on the court by the score of 8:5. Alexey Kononov made his second ace in the match, Volkov single–handedly closed Papazov, and Labinsky thanked Volvich with his pipe for playing defense - 16:9.
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