Zenit-Kazan vs. Zenit | HIGHLIGHTS | 24 Round | Pari SuperLeague 2025

Both Alexey Verbov and his colleague Vladimir Alekno fielded their strongest squads for the central match of the tour.

Kazan took the lead thanks to Mikey's block

Christenson, who stopped Yegor Klyuki's attack – 5:3. The American binder also served aggressively, which helped the hosts to increase the advantage after a mistake by Marlon Yanta – 10:7. After bright attacks from Dmitry Volkov's back line, Kazan also entered the end with a comfortable margin of +3, but did not hold it.

Yant scored the final goal, and Ivan Yakovlev got a block to Volkov – 21:21. But Dmitry did not stop and twice brought Kazan set points – 24:22, 25:24. Each time they were won back by Vladislav Babkevich, who scored 9 points per set. But it wasn't him who became the main character of the game, but Klyuka – his attack and ace brought victory to the Petersburgers in a dramatic ending (30:28).

In the first game, both teams showed a modest implementation of the attack, but their good defense is to blame for this. In the second set, the libero of the guests, Zhenya Grebennikov, continued to make crazy saves, Ilya Fedorov did not lag behind, who dragged Babkevich's shot away – Volkov then scored in a counterattack – 6:4. Kazan were one step ahead until Yant came on the serve and scored two aces with serves to Deru and Volkov. In addition, Deru made an awkward defensive play and the score of 16:15 turned into 16:18. Instead of Sam, Mikhail Labinsky entered the playground.

It was his pitch to the Stick that allowed Zenit Kazan to equalize the score - Volkov scored a passing ball (19:19). And Romanovsky, who came out instead of Kononov, closed the Stick with a block – 22:21. In another protracted ending, the opponents made a lot of mistakes on serve, but Labinsky completed everything, who made an ace with a shortened serve – 28:26. This time, Volkov scored 9 points for the set.

The third set was a continuation of the previous ones in its content – the rivals fought desperately for every ball and did not let each other go far in the score. Volkov's block on Yant and Christenson's ace into the Stick allowed Kazan to take the lead – 16:14. After this mistake, Kljuka gave way on the court to Stanislav Dinaykin for a while. Two shots into the out by Babkevich, the main striker of St. Petersburg, helped Tatarstan to increase the advantage – 21:18. The guests in this game implemented only 35% of attacks. Mikhailov and Romanovsky brought the game to victory – 25:22.

In the opening of the fourth set, Babkevich made two consecutive aces with serves to Labinsky (5-5). The teams kept up for a long time, but then Zenit Kazan made a mini-breakthrough on Mikhailov's serves. Yant hit an out, Labinsky scored on the counterattack, and Christenson won the net ball at 16:13. Instead of Yakovlev, Zenit St. Petersburg had Chereisky in the center of the net, who blocked the attack of his counterpart Artyom Volvich and reduced the gap to a minimum (19:20), again increasing the degree of struggle. Kazan got a crazy ball in defense and were rewarded for it with a mistake in the Yant attack – 23:20. Volkov set the winning point in the match, causing the arena, which was almost sold out, to explode with delight.

Zenit Kazan has won all four matches this season against Zenit St. Petersburg. – 3:0, 3:1, 3:1, 3:1. In addition, Verbov's team broke the opponent's 13-match winning streak.

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