and for the fifth time became the winner of the Russian Cup

Basketball

The UMMC women's basketball club became the winner of the Russian Cup. The “Final Four” of the tournament took place at the UGCM site in Yekaterinburg. In both meetings, the home team left their opponents little chance, beating Dynamo Kursk in the semi-finals, and beating Nadezhda from Orenburg in the decisive match - 92:72. This success, in addition to another trophy, gave UMMC a direct ticket to the Euroleague next season.

The UMMC basketball club approached the “Final Four” of the Russian Cup as an obvious favorite. Not only because the decisive stage of the tournament took place at the “foxes” home, in Yekaterinburg, but also because of the obvious gaming superiority of UMMC over its rivals.

The team of Algirdas Paulauskas proved its high class already in the semi-finals, in which UMMC confidently dealt with Dynamo Kursk - 85:50. The bill, to put it mildly, leaves no room for comment. In the second semi-final match “Nadezhda” from Orenburg and “Sparta & K” near Moscow met. There was a slightly more intense confrontation here, but in the end “Nadezhda” managed to win with a difference of ten points.

In the final, which quite predictably brought together full stands (in Yekaterinburg, women's basketball is almost the most popular sport), there was a real fight, unlike last year, when UMMC and Nadezhda also fought for the Russian Cup (UMMC won then by a margin only six points), it didn’t work out. From the first minutes, the owners of the site imposed their game on their opponents, providing high pressure in attack, where Maria Stepanova, Candice Parker and Sandrine Gruda successfully worked over and over again. UMMC played very tightly on defense, and as a result, the first quarter ended with the home team leading by 12 points.

This breakthrough, in fact, became decisive in the match. After all, “Nadezhda”, no matter how hard she tried, could not catch up with her rivals. Although there were moments when the guests approached, as they say, within attacking distance. But UMMC invariably retained the lead and deservedly won - 92:72.

Even the failure of the electronic scoreboard did not interfere, due to which the game was interrupted for ten minutes. Although, as the director of the Yekaterinburg club Maxim Ryabkov noted, the moment was exciting. “After all, when the scoreboard went wrong, our team was on the move, and there was a danger that the mood would be lost. Fortunately, this did not happen, which indicates the good mood of our basketball players, despite the fact that the opponent was very difficult,” Mr. Ryabkov.

The director of the UMMC basketball club also noted that thanks to the victory in the Russian Cup, already the fifth in the history of the club, the Ural basketball players received a direct ticket to the Euroleague for the next season. But for now, the team is naturally concentrating on this season’s EuroLeague. UMMC made it to the “Final Eight” of the tournament, which will be held from March 28 to April 1 in Istanbul.

The club hopes that the team will be lucky. "The club management represented by the president of the basketball club Andrei Kozitsyn (general director of UMMC-Holding - Kommersant ) and vice-president Igor Kudryashkin (commercial director of UMMC-Holding - Kommersant ), who directly supervises the basketball direction, always sets the highest goals for the players. At the same time, all conditions are created for the basketball players so that they can only think about the game,” said Mr. Ryabkov.

Alexander Petrov

UMMC played like a master