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Premier League. Matches of the 12th round. July 25. "Moscow" - "Dynamo". July 26. "Rubin" - "Shinnik". 13th round. July 29. "Torpedo" - CSKA, "Amkar" - "Spartak" (M). July 30. Dynamo - Zenit, Tom - Rubin, Saturn - Lokomotiv, Shinnik - Moscow, Krylya Sovetov - Luch-Energia.
The capital's Spartak returns to the tournament of the strongest teams in the Old World after a four-year break. The red-whites' opponent in the away match on Wednesday will be Sheriff (Moldova). On this day, Dynamo Kyiv will also play away with another team from the former USSR - the Latvian Metallurg (Liepaja). Let us recall that last year none of the clubs in the post-Soviet space made it to the 32 participants in the group stage of the Champions League.
In the UEFA Cup, the most paradoxical result in the first matches was recorded in Hungary. The rather reputable metropolitan club Ujpest lost devastatingly to Vaduz from the tiny state of Liechtenstein - 0:4. However, only foreign players scored goals for the team from the principality: a Senegalese, a Swiss of Turkish origin and an Argentinean with an Italian passport. Anatoly Ponomarev, the son of Seoul 1988 Olympic champion Igor Ponomarev, known for his performances for the Baku Neftchi, also plays on this team.
ATHLETICS. July 24. Stage of the World Athletic Tour. Thessaloniki (Greece). July 25. Stage of the Super Grand Prix series. Stockholm (Sweden). July 26. Stage of the Grand Prix series. Helsinki (Finland). July 28. Stage of the Super Grand Prix series. London (UK).
This is the last serious international competition ahead of the European Championship starting on August 7 in Sweden. All these tournaments are included in the World Athletics Tour, where points are calculated on an accumulative basis throughout the 2006 season. The best results in the series are shown by Athens Olympic champion Tatyana Lebedeva - she leads both in the triple jump and in the long jump. True, the Volgograd athlete does not intend to compete in the second type of program at the continental championship.
TENNIS. July 24--20. WTA tournaments (women) . Stanford (USA), Budapest (Hungary). ATP tournaments (men). Los Angeles (USA), Umag (Croatia), Kitzbühel (Austria).
In Stanford, at the second category BTA tournament, $600 thousand in prize money is being played out. There are 28 participants in the main singles draw, so tennis players with the top four seeds are exempt from participating in the starting round. These are Kim Clijsters (Belgium), Patti Schneider (Switzerland), Nicole Vaidišová (Czech Republic) and Anna Lena Grünefeld (Germany). Russia is guaranteed to be represented only by Vera Zvonareva, who at the beginning of last week was in 50th place in the world rankings. She took advantage of a special invitation from the wild card organizers. Four more of our compatriots started the tournament with qualifications. On the Stanford hard courts, the black American Chanda Rubin, who has not competed for exactly a year due to an injury and long-term treatment of the knee joint of her left leg, is expected to return to the WTA tour. Rubin has seven titles won on her record, and in 2003 she was consistently in the top ten of the world rankings. The prize fund at the competitions in Budapest will amount to only 145 thousand dollars - this is the fourth category of the BTA. Here the girls sort things out on the dirt surface. Our Alisa Kleybanova is “seeded” number seven.
The winner of the men's tournament on Austrian clay will earn 110,600 euros. The main draw includes 48 players. Among them is our Nikolai Davydenko. He will start fighting for the title from the second round. The current title holder is the 2004 Roland Garros champion, Argentinean Gaston Gaudio. In Los Angeles (hard surface) the prize money is less, but such titled masters as Americans Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi and Australian Lleyton Hewitt will play here. Plus three Russians: Marat Safin, Dmitry Tursunov and Igor Kunitsyn.
"FORMULA-1". July 30. World Championship. 12th stage. German Grand Prix. Hockenheimring circuit.
The riders will have to overcome 67 laps of 4574 meters - that's almost 306.5 km. Over the past three seasons, different drivers have won here - Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya in 2003, then the owner of the track, German Michael Schumacher, and last year, the current world champion, Spaniard Fernando Alonso. But the best lap time was shown by Finn Kimi Raikkonen for two years in a row. The German Grand Prix has been held continuously at Hockenheim since 1977, with the exception of the 1985 season, when the race took place at the Nurburgring. In general, the history of this Grand Prix dates back to 1951.
WATER SPORTS. European Championship. Budapest (Hungary).
During the championship, sets of awards will be awarded in swimming (in open water and in a 50-meter pool), synchronized swimming and diving. The tournament will last until August 6, and this week the winners of gold medals in only ten disciplines will be announced. Here is the finals schedule. Swimming: Wednesday -- 10 km (men) and 5 km (women); Thursday -- 5 km (m), 10 km (w); Saturday -- 25 km (m); Sunday -- 25 km (w) Synchronized swimming: Saturday - solo and teams; Sunday - duets and combined team competitions.
WATER POLO. July 26--30. World League. Women. Final tournament. Cosenza (Italy).
The title is contested by six teams: Russia, USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, Holland. At the preliminary stages, the Russians, led by Alexander Kleimenov, suffered only one defeat - in Kirishi (Leningrad Region) from Italy with a score of 10:11. Although previously our girls won twice against water polo players from the Apennine Peninsula - in Nancy, France (14:8) and visiting their rivals in Syracuse (11:8).
The Women's World League is being held for the third time. The champion will receive $50 thousand as the main prize. The first winner of the tournament was the Americans two years ago; last season, the Greek team celebrated its triumph, beating our team in the final.