One of the Most Dramatic Match in Volleyball History!!!

Zenit famously started this game and already with the score 4:1, Loko took the first timeout, during which Plamen Konstantinov complained that there was clearly not enough normal reception of a simple feed (he did not lie). After a pause, Novosibirsk returned quickly enough thanks to the good serve of Kurkaev and Abaev (9:9 after the ace of the hosts' binder). It was objectively difficult for the guests to cope with the reception at this moment and a little later, because the Loko was seriously breaking up, and after Kazachenkov's series with two aces, the hosts were already leading plus 3 (15:12). Abayev expectedly loaded his central ones to the maximum, successfully using the option of the first tempo even after not the most convenient debugging. At the same time, Novosibirsk continued to keep the most serious level of submission without failures, so in this situation, it was objectively difficult for Zenit to cope with the opponent in the first set, in which Peter conceded, albeit with a minimum lag of 23:25.

The second set began with the submission of Lyzik on the edge of the fifth zone, to be honest, it was impossible to accept it. Zenit survived the initial mini-crisis relatively calmly and, after a successful block on Kostadinov's attack, got Loko — 6:6. In the first half of this game, Kovalev finally managed to activate the option of attacking through the centers so that it began to look like a proportional response to the similar efforts of the hosts (5 goals out of 6 from Yakovlev and Kosmin to the score of 10:11). Anderson in this set, as in the first, continued to doze for a long time – mistakes on the serve, nothing remarkable in the attack, but Captain America woke up at the right moment – two goals scored in a row, then a single block on Kurbanov (17:15). When Yakovlev caught Kazachenkov's attack, and Kobzar, who came on as a substitute, offended Novosibirsk with an ace, it became clear that the guests would not miss their chance – 20:16. Max Kosmin set the winning point with the first tempo attack, thus drawing a line under the generally successful use of this element on the scale of the party (7 out of 8).

In the next set, Matt Anderson finally emerged from the twilight, scored a couple of labor goals, and then provided his serve with an opportunity for a comfortable finish, realized by Yakovlev. The score of 11:8, which was established after that, led to a time-out by Konstantinov. Peter in this game, as well as in the scale of the match as a whole, methodically surpassed "Loko" on the block and the quintessence of this advantage was the moment when Kosmin caught the first pace of Lyzik. At the score of 17:13, when Zenit was completely in control of the game, an episode occurred that could have turned the course of the match non-exclusively: Grebennikov collided with Voronkov at the reception and received a painful shoulder injury. This loss was fraught with big problems, given that not Sergey Melkozerov, but Vasily Tarasenko was announced as the second libero for the guests. Fortunately, the Olympic champion from France managed to return quickly, and the end of the third set went normally – Peter relatively calmly put the squeeze on Novosibirsk (25:20), although Grebennikov – it was evident from a couple of episodes – plays through the pain.

Zenit had a hard time in the fourth set: closer to the middle of the set, Yakovlev did not score 2 goals in a row after not the most convenient passes, which led to the replacement of Peter's passer – Kobzar came out with the score 7:10. However, just for a couple of minutes: Kovalev returned very soon and Zenit finished the game with him. The chase after a peak lag of 4 points required extraordinary efforts from the whole team and, above all, Egor Klyuki, who made three breaks to the score of 19:20. However, there is not an infinite reserve of miracles in the sleeve of one of the best Super League players: it was Egor who made a mistake twice in the end on the shooting, when he was addressed to the transfer after the knocked-out reception. Lokomotiv took the fourth set at 25:22 and moved the game to a tie-break.

In the final game, the teams were level for a long time, exchanging, among other things, mistakes on the pitch. The first case of advantage with a break, when Anderson was sheathed, turned out to be decisive, because it happened at the score of 12:11 in favor of Loko. A couple of minutes later, Kurkaev made an ace on the matchball and Loko beat a team from the TOP 4 for the first time this season. And Zenit suffered a second defeat in a row in the Super League.

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