Translated material
Chronicle
At the first category BTA tournament with a prize fund of $1.34 million in the Japanese capital yesterday, all participants in the quarterfinal stage were determined. Among them are four Russian tennis players.
The first to achieve the right to enter the top eight players of these prestigious competitions, held on hard courts, was the silver medalist of the Beijing Olympics, Dinara Safina. She defeated Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova in the second round match - 6:3, 6:4. On Thursday, Dinara was joined by Summer Games gold winner in singles Elena Dementyeva, Nadezhda Petrova and the newly crowned 2008 Federation Cup winner Svetlana Kuznetsova. The most difficult thing was for Petrova, who over the course of three sets overcame the resistance of the former first racket of the world, Serbian Ana Ivanovic - 6:1, 1:6, 6:2. In the other two matches of the 1/8 finals with the participation of Russians there was practically no fight. Kuznetsova defeated the local winner of a special invitation from the organizers, Ayumi Morita - 6:1, 6:1, Dementieva defeated the Frenchwoman Aliza Cornet - 6:0, 6:3.
The quarterfinals will take place today. The pairs of rivals are as follows: Elena Jankovic (Serbia) - Kuznetsova, Dementieva - "qualifier" Katarina Srebotnik (Slovenia), our Anna Chakvetadze's offender in the first round match Kaia Kanepi (Estonia) - Safina, Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) - - Petrova. Participants in this stage have already earned $30.5 thousand, and the winner of the tournament will receive a check for $196.9 thousand plus 400 rating points.
Thanks to her victory over Cornet, Dementieva qualified for the final tournament of the year, the WTA Championship, which will be held in the capital of Qatar, Doha (November 4-9, total prize fund of $4.45 million).
The first defeat of CSKA basketball players
The champion of the Euroleague and the Russian Championship, the CSKA men's basketball team suffered its first defeat in control matches of the coming season. While at the training camp in Italy, the “red-blues” lost to Montepaschi (Siena) in the next sparring – 54:72. The winners' highest scorer was McIntyre (21 points), while Lorbek (13), Langdon (13) and Siskauskas (10) scored among the Muscovites.
On Monday, the Alexander Gomelsky Cup, an international tournament in memory of the mentor of the Olympic champions of Seoul 1998, starts at the CSKA universal gym. In addition to the hosts, such elite clubs of the Old World as the Lithuanian Zalgiris (Kaunas), the Greek Panathinaikos (Athens) and the Israeli Maccabi (Tel Aviv) will take part in it. The tournament format is extremely compressed. In the semi-finals on September 22, Maccabi - Panathinaikos, CSKA - Zalgiris meet, a day later the match for third place and the final will take place.
Other representatives of the Russian Super League also continue pre-season training. “Spartak-Primorye” from Vladivostok beat the winner of the Turkish regular championship of the last season, Istanbul “Besiktas” - 93:81. Among the rivals, the most striking figure is the former American legionnaire of the capital's Dynamo and the Moscow region's Triumph, Mairi Chatman. Kazan UNICS was defeated by Red Star Belgrade - 73:80. Krasnoyarsk "Yenisey", which recently strengthened itself with former Khimki player Alexey Savkov, defeated the Croatian "Porec", securing a double advantage - 92:46. “Khimki” at the training camp in Slovenia prevailed over “Slovan” from Ljubljana - 85:62.
Isinbayeva is going to jump in Shanghai
The summer international athletics season officially ended last weekend with the World Finals in Stuttgart, Germany, but some commercial starts are still ongoing.
At a tournament in the Polish city of Szczecin, Russian pole vaulter Yulia Golubchikova achieved a height of 4 m 60 cm and, with the same result, lost first place to the hostess of the competition, Monika Pyrek, based on the largest number of attempts used. Our Svetlana Feofanova became a bronze medalist, having cleared 4 m 50 cm.
Tomorrow there will be a tournament in Shanghai, China. Despite a cold, due to which she missed the World Finals in Stuttgart, two-time Olympic champion and world record holder in the pole vault Elena Isinbaeva promises to compete in the sector at the stadium in China's largest city. In addition to her, nine more Beijing Olympic champions are going to please local spectators with their high results. Among them is the Russian high jump master Andrei Silnov.
Dramatic victory for Pankov's team
In the third round of the continental qualifying tournament for women's volleyball teams in Omsk, where three passes to the 2009 World Grand Prix are awarded, the Russian team, under the leadership of new head coach Vadim Pankov, defeated Italy in a dramatic match - 3: 2 (25: 20, 25:18, 20:25, 26:28, 15:12).
The fourth set turned out to be especially interesting and completely illogical. The Russians managed to lose nine goals in a row and were behind 2:11. The Italians maintained a confident lead for a long time (19:11), but then they too gave way. The hosts caught up with their opponents and even took the lead, gaining two match points - 24:22. However, the game still remained with the “Squadra Azzurra” - Maria Borisenko and Natalya Safronova made completely inopportune serve errors. Pankov's team were stronger in the tiebreaker. Thus, after three matches, the Russian team has two victories. The rest of Thursday's matches ended like this: Holland - France - 3:0 (25:18, 25:21, 25:18), Germany - Serbia - 3:1 (25:22, 20:25, 25:23 , 25:21).
The Dutch are in the lead with a 100% result, Russia and Germany have two wins each, Serbia and Italy have one each, the French were defeated in all the games played. Based on the results of the one-round tournament, the three strongest teams will receive tickets to the Grand Prix. Today is a day off at the competitions in Omsk, tomorrow there will be matches Germany - Holland, Italy - France, Russia - Serbia.