Translated material
Weekly Calendar
The Russian national team under the leadership of captain Shamil Tarpishchev has an excellent chance to repeat the success of four years ago, when our tennis players defeated the French in the Davis Cup final in Paris. The hero of the meeting at the Bercy sports complex was Mikhail Youzhny, who won a strong-willed victory over Paul-Henri Mathieu in the decisive match. From that team, Yuzhny and Marat Safin remained in our team, and Yevgeny Kafelnikov has already retired. Marat and Mikhail will fight against the South Americans along with the third racket of the world Nikolai Davydenko and Dmitry Tursunov - in his first full season in the national team, the tennis player permanently residing in the USA has established himself as an excellent team fighter.
David Nalbandian, Jose Acasuso, Agustin Calleri and Juan Ignacio Chela will perform for Argentina. The visiting captain is Alberto Mancini. On the way to the final, the Argentines defeated Sweden (5:0), last year's trophy winner Croatia (3:2) and Australia (5:0). On the way to the decisive confrontation, the Russians had Holland (5:0), France (4:1) and the USA (3:2). Moreover, in the match with the Americans, Tursunov brought us the winning point, winning against Andy Roddick in five games, with the final set stretching over 32 games.
The current final will be held on the synthetic surface of the capital's Olimpiysky sports complex. The format of the match is standard - two singles matches will take place on Friday (the first one starts at 13.00), pairs will compete on Saturday (14.00) and two singles again on Sunday (13.00). The last time Russia and Argentina played each other was in April 2003 in Buenos Aires, and then the hosts defeated our team on their favorite ground - 5:0.
VOLLEYBALL. November 27 -- December 3. World Championship. Men. Japan. November 28-29. Champions League. Women. 1st round. December 3. Start of the Russian Women's Super League Championship.
Tomorrow the Russians have the most important match of the second group stage against Poland, the next day Zoran Gajić's team meets Japan. Then a dozen of the strongest teams will be given two days of rest, after which, according to the playoff system, the fight for 1st-4th, 5th-8th and 9th-12th places will begin.
Volleyball players from the leading clubs of the Old World are entering the fight for the title of the strongest in Europe. In the first round of the Champions League, Dynamo Moscow will host the Turkish Vakifbank from Istanbul. Russia had the right to two places in this tournament, but the winner of the country's Cup, CSKA, refused to participate for financial reasons, entering the second most important Cup of Top Teams.
In the opening match of the Russian Women's Super League championship, the 2005 Russian Cup finalist Khabarovsk "Nugget", which includes newly crowned world champions Marina Akulova and Natalya Kulikova, will host the new team "Dynamo-Yantar" (Kaliningrad). The Baltic Club is actually the former Dynamo near Moscow, and the succession was formalized accordingly. Kaliningrad automatically received a place in the Super League and European Cups.
BASKETBALL. November 28-29. ULEB Cup. 5th round. November 29--30. Euroleague ULEB. 6th round.
In the previous round, the capital's army team left no chance for the local Zalgiris in Kaunas - 78:59, and in the last quarter the "red-blues" made an impressive breakthrough, winning 14 points - 23:9. Among the winners, five basketball players have a double-digit number in the “performance” column - Trajan Langdon (15), Matjaz Smodis (15), Theodoras Papaloukas (13), John Holden (10) and David Vanterpool (10). This week CSKA's opponent will be the Spanish Barcelona. The match will take place on Wednesday in Moscow. The “blue garnets” have not yet suffered a single defeat, but if the hosts are successful with a difference of at least three points, it will be the capital club that will lead the standings of Group “C”.
In the ULEB Cup last week, another titled Spanish team, “Real” (Madrid), in Russia, missed a significant, primarily psychological blow from UNICS. The Kazan team in their “Basket Hall” managed to win back a five-point deficit within 16 seconds remaining before the end of regulation time. In overtime, the hosts were unstoppable. The club from the capital of Tatarstan will play in Greece with PAOK (Thessaloniki) this coming Tuesday, and Khimki, located near Moscow, will go to Bulgaria to meet with Akademik Sofia.
BIATHLON. World Cup. 1st stage. Östersund (Sweden).
The program of the first stage includes individual races (Wednesday - women, 15 km; Thursday - men, 20 km), sprint (Friday - women, 7.5 km; Saturday - men, 10 km) and Sunday pursuit races (10 km and 12.5 km respectively). The starting position of the Russian team in recent years has not been as weak as it is now. The athletes are in a state of permanent conflict with the head of the Russian Biathlon Union Alexander Tikhonov, Pavel Rostovtsev has retired, Turin 2006 Olympic champions Olga Zaitseva and Albina Akhatova are not competing due to family reasons, Olga Pyleva is serving a disqualification.
SHORT TRACK. December 1--3. World Cup. 3rd stage. Seganay (Canada).
The previous two stages of the World Cup took place in Asia - in China and Korea. After the third weekend of competition, the leading short track masters will remain in Canada, since the next starts will also take place in this country, but in Montreal. And in February, the World Cup stages will take place in the Old World - Holland and Hungary. The Russians here are still extras.
FIGURE SKATING. November 30 -- December 3. Grand Prix 6th stage. NHK Trophy. Nagano (Japan).
Russian participants of the stage - Alexander Uspensky, Arina Martynova, sports duo Julia Obertas - Sergey Slavnov and dance couple Yana Khokhlova - Sergey Novitsky.
MOUNTAIN SKIING. November 30 -- December 3. World Cup stage. Men. Beaver Creek (USA). Super combined, downhill, giant slalom, slalom. December 1--3. World Cup stage. Women. Lake Louise (Canada). Two downhills, super-G.
CHESS. November 27 -- December 3. Match "Human vs. Computer" World Chess Challenge 2006. World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) - Deep Fritz program. Bonn (Germany).