Translated material
Week calendar
Intertoto Cup. July 14--15. Second round. Return matches .
World Championship among youth teams (under 20 years old). July 11--12. Quarterfinals. July 14--15. Semi-finals. Canada.
South American Open (Copa America). July 10--11. Semi-finals. July 14. Match for third place. July 15. Final. Venezuela.
The national championship among top division teams resumes after a two-week break between the first and second rounds of the tournament. One of the matches of the 16th round was postponed to a later time due to the participation of the Kazan club in the Intertoto Cup - Rubin and Lokomotiv will meet in the capital of Tatarstan on July 25. Let us recall the position of the championship leaders. St. Petersburg's Zenit is ahead with 27 points, the capital's Spartak is one point behind, followed by Dynamo, Krylya Sovetov and CSKA - 22 each. Moscow has 21 points, but the "citizens" led by Leonid Slutsky held one less meeting. The hopeless outsider of the championship is “Rostov” (ten points), while “Spartak” from Nalchik (15), “Luch-Energia” (16) and “Kuban” (17) are still in the struggle for survival in the elite.
The central meeting of the 16th round will be the capital derby CSKA - Dynamo. In the first round, the duel between the principal rivals ended in a draw - 1:1. Both goals were scored in the second half of the match, and the “blue and white” escaped defeat four minutes before the final whistle thanks to a goal from Ruslan Pimenov. And the Brazilian Vagner Love distinguished himself among the army team.
In the return game of the second round of the Intertoto Cup, Rubin hosts the Magyar Zalaegerszeg on Saturday. If they are successful in the sum of two meetings, Kurban Berdyev's charges will compete at the decisive stage of the tournament for the right to participate in the UEFA Cup with the winner of the pair "Rapid" (Vienna, Austria) - "Slovan" (Bratislava, Slovakia).
It’s a paradox, but the quarterfinals of the World Youth Football Championship will take place in purely “hockey” cities, each of which has an NHL club - Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa.
VOLLEYBALL. July 9--15. World Youth Championship. Morocco. July 11--15. World League . Final tournament. Katowice (Poland).
The nine-thousand-strong Spodek sports palace, which looks like a giant flying saucer, already hosted matches of the final stage of the World League six years ago. Then the Russians, led by Gennady Shipulin, finished third (and the next year they became champions), the Italians took second place, and the main trophy went to the Brazilians. For four seasons in a row, the South Americans have dominated world volleyball, without losing the most important titles to anyone. The Russians will complete the group stage with a match against the Brazilians on July 13, and the day before Vladimir Alekno’s team will compete with Bulgaria. In the other three teams, the hosts of the competition, the Poles, the USA and wild card holder France, will compete for a spot in the semi-finals. Cuba and Finland also formally applied for a special invitation, but in fact they had no chance in the correspondence fight against the “tricolors”. After all, the French reached the final last year, where they lost to the Brazilians in a tiebreaker.
The World Youth Championships feature volleyball players who will not turn 20 before the end of this year. The Russian national team is led by the legendary setter Vyacheslav Zaitsev; the core of the team is made up of players from the club system of the Belgorod Lokomotiv-Belogorye.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL. July 11--15. A Grand Slam tournament within the World Tour. Berlin (Germany).
The current European champions Alexandra Shiryaeva and Natalya Uryadova (Moscow region) were ranked last, 24th in the list of teams admitted to the main draw without qualification. The Russians will be forced to start the next stage of the “World Tour” in Marseille with qualifying competitions, where the participating tandems stop fighting after just one defeat.
Igor Kolodinsky and Dmitry Barsuk (Belgorod) feel much more confident in the elite. They started the 2007 Grand Slam series in Paris and were classified only 17th there. But in Stavanger (Norway) we finished fourth - this is a new Russian record for tournaments of this rank.
BASKETBALL. July 9--15. European Championship among men's youth teams. Slovenia, Italy. July 13--15. European Championship among women's youth teams. Bulgaria.
For the first time, two countries acted as organizers of a men's tournament. The Russian national team (head coach Andrey Maltsev) competes in Gorizia (Italy) in the first group stage and successfully played the opening match, defeating Greece 78:70. Our most productive player was Alexey Shved, a representative of the famous Belgorod dynasty - 27 points. His sister Evgenia Nikonova (Swede) was the captain of the national women's team at the “silver” European Championship 2001 in France.
TENNIS. July 9--15. ATP tournaments (men). Gstaad (Switzerland), Bastad (Sweden), Newport (USA). July 14--15. Federation Cup (women). Semi-final .
After the British Open, many top tennis players will take a break for one or two weeks. Therefore, at the upcoming tournaments, the average players will get their chance. Men in Europe will compete on clay courts, while in Newport the fights will take place on grass courts. Elite girls won't have time to relax. Over the weekend, the Fed Cup matches are played by two dozen of the strongest teams, only four of them continue to challenge the trophy. The Russians are playing the semi-final match away from home against the US team. Sisters Serena and Venus Williams, veteran Lisa Raymond and Vanya King (surely she will remain in reserve) against Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadezhda Petrova and Anna Chakvetadze. The announcement of the upcoming match in the town of Stowe looks more than intriguing. The playing surface is hard, and the capacity of the stands is 4,100 spectators. Italy hosts France in the second semi-final. There will also be playoff matches for the right to play in the first and second World Groups of the next season.
CYCLE HIGHWAY. July 9--15. Multi-day race "Tour de France ". Second to eighth stages .
ATHLETICS. July 10. Tournament series "Super Grand Prix". "Atletissima". Lausanne (Switzerland). July 13. "Golden League". Third stage. Tournament "Golden Gala". Rome (Italy).