There’s no end to surprising results in the 2022 Russian Men’s Volleyball Cup.
We’ll see an unexpected 2022 Russian Men’s Cup (Кубок России-2022) final: Zenit-Kazan will play with Fakel, the eighth-ranked Superliga side which eliminated Lokomotiv in the semis, for the trophy. Looking as a whole, the national cup in Russia is really unpredictable this season. First, the leaders of the season in the Russian Championship, Zenit St. Petersburg, and the reigning champions, Dinamo Moscow, ended their campaigns in the groups of the second stage, and now the vice-champions Lokomotiv got eliminated by Fakel, which occupy only the eighth place in the Superliga standings.
The Novy Urengoy team automatically got into the semi-finals as the Final Four organizers and took advantage of the chance, giving the best game of the season against Lokomotiv – 3-0. Evgeniy Sivozhelez stood out on the winning side with 14 points. Aleksandr Melnikov set up 6 blocks. Dmitriy Lyzik tallied 14 points for the Novosibirsk side.
Zenit-Kazan beat Belogorie with the same score, with 17 points from Maksim Mikhaylov and 72% reception from Ilya Fedorov (18 digs, 50% excellent). Moroccan Mohamed Al Hachdadi scored 13 for Belogorie.
This is the second time that Fakel reached the final. The first time was in 2006 when they lost to Dinamo Moscow (0-3). Zenit-Kazan will play for the trophy in the Russian Cup for the eighth time in nine years and the 11th time overall. They lost only one final, in 2012, to Belogorie.
2022 Russian Men’s Volleyball Cup, Final Four, semi-finals:
