Translated material
Week calendar
Russian Championship. Premier League. 20th round. September 23. CSKA - Lokomotiv, Spartak M - Rubin, Rostov - Dynamo. September 24. “Saturn” - “Tom”, “Amkar” - “Shinnik”, “Wings of the Soviets” - “Torpedo”, “Luch-Energia” - “Zenith”, “Spartak” Nch - “Moscow”.
The central match of the tour between the army team and the railway team will begin on Saturday at 14:00 at the Big Sports Arena of the central Dynamo stadium in Petrovsky Park. On the same day, the “red-whites” will host UEFA Cup participant Kazan “Rubin” at Lokomotiv’s Cherkizovsky field. The April first round match between Slavolub Muslin's Loko and Valery Gazzaev's CSKA was dynamic, interesting and productive - 3:2 in favor of the hosts. The “red-blues” naturally crave revenge, and this circumstance fuels the excitement for the upcoming meeting. The Moscow Spartak players have similar thoughts - after all, in the capital of Tatarstan they lost with a score of 0:2.
This week, Premier League clubs will face a double burden in domestic competitions - more than two months after the first games, the return matches of the 1/16 finals of the domestic Cup will be held. Only the Torpedo - Fakel game is scheduled for Tuesday (the result of the first meeting is 0:0), the remaining 14 matches will take place on Wednesday. Here are the most interesting of them: "Rostov" - "Khimki" (2:0), "Mordovia" - CSKA (0:4), "Moscow" - "Terek" (1:4), "Anzhi" - - Lokomotiv (2:4), Dynamo - Spartak NN (3:1), Spartak M - Ural (1:0), Zenit - Chita (2 :1). One of the participants in the 1/8 finals was determined earlier: on September 9, Rubin took over Zenit-2 and achieved a five-goal advantage on aggregate - 3:0 on the banks of the Neva and 2:0 in Kazan.
TENNIS. September 22-24. Davis Cup (men). Semi-finals. Russia - USA (Moscow), Argentina - Australia (Buenos Aires). WTA tournaments (women). Beijing (China), Kolkata (India), Portorož (Slovenia).
The Russian men's team, led by its captain Shamil Tarpishchev, has a chance to reach the Davis Cup final for the fourth time. Our team won this trophy only once, in 2002, after defeating the French in Paris. In 1994, the Russians lost to the Swedes in the decisive match, and the following season to the Americans, both of these finals taking place in Moscow. And here is a new date with the Stars and Stripes. The ground surface has been laid at the capital's Olimpiysky sports complex, and the home team includes Nikolai Davydenko, Dmitry Tursunov, Marat Safin and Mikhail Yuzhny. Evgeniy Korolev is considered a reserve. The guests have such a fighting quartet - finalist of the recent US Open Andy Roddick, James Blake and the best couple in the world, brothers Bob and Mike Bryan. The team is led by Patrick McEnroe. There will be two singles matches on Friday and Sunday, starting at 1 p.m. The doubles combination is played on Saturday from 14.00.
Argentina also hosts Australia on clay in the other semi-final. The hosts will be represented by David Nalbandian, Agustin Calleri, Jose Acasuso and Juan Ignacio Chela (captain - Alberto Mancini), the Green Continent team includes Lleyton Hewitt, Mark Philippoussis, Paul Hanley and Wayne Arthurs (captain - John Fitzgerald). Also this weekend there will be matches for the right to remain in the World Group: Austria - Mexico, Germany - Thailand, Holland - Czech Republic, Romania - Korea, Slovakia - Belgium, Spain - Italy, Sweden - Brazil, Switzerland - - Serbia and Montenegro. Both the world number one, Swiss Roger Federer, and the number two individual ATP classification, Spaniard Rafael Nadal, will help their teams.
BASKETBALL. September 18--23. World Championship. Women. Sao Paulo (Brazil).
On Monday, the Russian girls have their last match of the second group stage against the Cubans. Starts at 22.15 Moscow time (the difference with Sao Paulo is seven hours). The quarterfinals will take place on Wednesday. In case of defeat, the team of our country will be left without medals for the second time in history, being a participant in the World Cup. The USSR national team made its debut at the World Championships in 1957 and constantly found itself on the podium, with the exception of the 1979 season (the tournament in South Korea was skipped for political reasons) and the 1990 World Championships in Malaysia, when it was defeated by Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, without making it into semi-final. Russia did not compete in the 1994 World Championships, since a year earlier it had finished only seventh at the European Championships, and then twice achieved silver medals.
CYCLE HIGHWAY. September 19--24. World Championship. Salzburg (Austria).
Last year's Vuelta winner Denis Menshov, Evgeny Petrov and Vladimir Karpets have been announced for Russia to participate in the men's time trial race. Karpets and Menshov have good chances for a medal, because they are strong in this discipline. Last season, Vladimir became second at the time trial of the Giro D'Italia, and Denis was first at a similar race within the Vuelta. The “cutting” will take place on Thursday, with a group race scheduled for Sunday. At the World Championships, two sets of medals will also be played for women and men under 23 years of age.
RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS. European Championship. September 22-24. Moscow.
The first serious start for Alina Kabaeva after her triumphant Athens Olympics. Having won gold in Greece, Alina decided to leave the sport, but soon returned to rhythmic gymnastics. In the capital, she has the opportunity to become the best in the absolute championship for the sixth time in a row.
CHESS. September 21--24. Unification match for the world champion title Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) - Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) . Elista. 1st--2nd batches .
The opening ceremony of the match for the world crown will take place on Thursday, and the first move will be made on Saturday. The guaranteed prize fund for this confrontation is $1 million. The match is played in 12 games, the winner is the grandmaster who is the first to score 6.5 points. In case of equality of forces, a tie-break is assigned - four games with a truncated time control. Topalov defends the title of the strongest chess player, received following the results of last year’s “Tournament of Eight” in Argentina. Kramnik first captured the world title in classical chess in 2000, defeating Garry Kasparov, and defended four seasons later in a match with Hungarian Peter Leko (draw 7:7).