Translated material
Week calendar
Intertoto Cup. July 12--13. Second round return matches.
The match of the 13th round "Rubin" - "Saturn" was postponed to July 16 due to the fact that the Moscow region team is playing the return match of the second round of the Intertoto Cup against the Luxembourg club "Etzella" (Ettelbrück). In the upcoming round, two capital derbies can be highlighted: Spartak - CSKA and Dynamo - Lokomotiv.
St. Petersburg Zenit begins to play on a tighter schedule than other teams, playing in rescheduled matches. Let us recall that the leadership of the Russian Football Premier League met the St. Petersburg team halfway at a time when the charges of Dutch specialist Dick Advocaat were preparing for the UEFA Cup final.
VOLLEYBALL. July 9--13. Grand Prix Final tournament. Yokohama (Japan). July 11--13. World League. Intercontinental round. 5th gaming weekend .
On July 11 and 12 in Kazan, the Russian men's team can decide ahead of time the issue of reaching the final round, where the group winners are guaranteed to qualify. The decisive stage of the largest commercial competition will take place on July 23-27 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Now the Russians are one victory ahead of their main competitors, the Italians. If Vladimir Alekno’s team defeats the “Squadra Azzurra” both times in the capital of Tatarstan, then the Russians will become unattainable. By the way, it was with the Italians that the Russian national team held the largest number of official meetings over the 15 years of its existence.
Here's who will meet in the remaining pairs of the fifth gaming weekend. Group "A". Brazil - France, Serbia - Venezuela. Group "B". Korea - Cuba. Group "C". USA - Spain, Bulgaria - Finland. Group "D". Poland - Japan, Egypt - China.
In a similar women's tournament, where the Russian team does not compete, following the results of the preliminary stage, the Olympic champions of Athens, the Chinese, the World Cup winner and European champion Italy, the USA, Brazil, Cuba and Japan as the host country, advanced to the final round.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL. July 10--13. European Championship. Hamburg (Germany).
There are 32 teams participating in the men's and women's tournaments. According to the rating of the European Volleyball Confederation, Igor Kolodinsky - Dmitry Barsuk, Maria Bratkova - Evgenia Ukolova, Alexandra Shiryaeva - Natalya Uryadova were among the applicants for the continental championship awards. Moreover, the champions of the Old World 2006 Shiryaeva and Uryadova have only a 31st rating and got into the tournament only thanks to additional indicators, since they have the same number of points as the Czech tandem Hanzelov - Tomashekova. And the 32nd vacancy was given to a “wild card”, and it was given to the Brazilians Andrezza Chagas and Cristina Santana, known in the world of beach volleyball as Saka and Rtvelo, playing under the Georgian flag.
CYCLE HIGHWAY. July 7--13. Multi-day race of the Grand Tour category "Tour de France". 3--9 stages.
The most prestigious stage race this season is organized in such a way that the intrigue in the fight for victory in the general classification is immediately established. If earlier the first five or six stages took place exclusively on the plain, and there was freedom for sprinters, now the peloton enters the mountains in the first week.
True, on Monday the stage will be purely flat. On the 208 km distance from Saint-Malo to Nantes, three sprint prizes are awarded, all in the first half of the route. The next day, a time trial race (28.5 km) will take place in Cholet. On Wednesday, the longest stage of the current Tour will take place - participants will have to cover 232 km. Then the peloton will head to the mountains - on Thursday, two intermediate finishes at the peaks of the lowest, fourth category of difficulty, and then further climb to an altitude of 1400 m above sea level. The second category prize is awarded there. On Friday the route's terrain will be even more difficult (ascent to 1588 m).
Saturday's stage will end on the plain in Toulouse, but on Sunday the peloton returns to the mountains and storms the Pyrenees. In the second half of the distance there are two mountain awards of the first category. The Tour de France runs until July 27.
TENNIS. July 7--13. WTA tournaments. Palermo (Italy). Priming. Budapest (Hungary). Priming. ATP tournaments. Stuttgart (Germany). Priming. Bastad (Sweden). Priming. Gstaad (Switzerland). Priming. Newport (USA). Grass.
After the Wimbledon tournament, there is usually a lull in the tennis world. The best players on the planet take two to three weeks off to get in good shape for the North American hard court series that ends with the US Open.
This week the women will play for $175,000 in the Hungarian capital - this is the standard amount of prize money for third-category tournaments. Here, Magyar Agnes Shavai is seeded number one. Russia is represented by Anna Lapushenkova. In Palermo the level of competition is even lower - the fourth category. Alla Kudryavtseva, who defeated Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon, Galina Voskoboeva and Ekaterina Bychkova will play here.
For men, of the four tournaments, the most significant is perhaps the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart. Mikhail Yuzhny and Igor Andreev are going to Gstaad, Marat Safin will perform in Sweden, Igor Kunitsyn and Mikhail Ledovskikh will play on the grass courts of Newport.
PROFESSIONAL BOXING. July 12. Fight for the world title according to IBF and WBO versions Vladimir Klitschko (Ukraine) - Tony Thompson (USA). Hamburg (Germany).
In addition to the championship belts of the world-reputable professional boxing organizations IBF and WBO, the title of the low-prestige IBO will be played in Hamburg. The last time Vladimir Klitschko defended his IBO and IBF titles was on February 23 of this year, when he defeated Sultan Ibragimov in the unification fight, after which he also became the WBO title holder. The statistics of Klitschko’s performances in the professional ring are as follows: 53 fights, 50 victories (44 of them by knockout), three defeats (all early). Tony Thompson is 36 years old. He has been a professional since 2000. He fought 32 fights, won 31 victories (19 by knockout), suffered one defeat, and this happened at the beginning of his career.