Kazan defeated Lokomotiv Kaliningrad in the match for third place in the Russian Cup with 3-2.
Best scorer for Kazan was the 15-year old Kadochkina with 20 pts, with Malygina (18 pts) and Kotikova (16 pts) not far behind, while Cleger (31 pts) and Voronkova (23 pts) scored the most for the hosts.
Kadochkina is the best player in Kazan (together with Koroleva) for me. She should be a starter in the team from now on.
Kutyukova is on court, but to no avail for Kaliningrad. Moscow takes the lead with two sets to none, and they look very solid and hard to beat right now, vastly better than the pathetic displays in the beginning of the season vs Ural and Fener. Reception is no longer a liability to the same degree, if at all, and Goncharova seems to have found her groove as well, in the first set she was virtually unstoppable.
Btw, Ogenjenovic looks really harmonious and cheerful while playing for Moscow now. Overall I get impression the chemistry in terms of the mental aspect is great between the Moscow-players.
Orthmann is playing really well
She has been very so-so for me during the start of the season. Somehow I think its too early for her to play in a top-team like Monza at this stage of her career. Her overall attacking efficiency ratio of killed balls out of the total number of attempts is about 35% in Serie A right now, which isnt particularily bad but not particularily good either, it´s mediocre. The best attacking OH´s usually shows up 40% or better in that category.
I love Hannah tonight, she's stunning!
Is she playing tonight? Where? At least there´s no games in the Challenge Cup for Monza this week.
The play-off in the Russian cup will set off tomorrow and unravel the day after through the final, with Lokomotiv as the host since the tournament will take place in Kaliningrad (likely in front of a great number of spectators in the crowd), and the set-up of the compositions in the semifinals are as follows:
Lokomotiv Kaliningrad vs Dinamo Moscow
Dinamo Kazan vs Enisey Krasnoyarsk
On paper, the most balanced game should be the one between Dinamo Moscow and Kaliningrad, Goncharova vs Cleger on the OPP-position as well as the "battle of the serbian playmakers" in Ognjenovic vis-a-vis Zivkovic. In the last game for Kaliningrad, against Uralochka the previous weekend, the absence of Kutyukova on the wing proved to malicious for the team in order to prevail in the end. The teams depth on her position isnt top notch, the 17-year old Valeria Shevchuk replaced her without any success, neither in attack nor reception. I believe, under the given condition Kutyukova isnt disposable once again, the reception for the home side will wind up and crack to ample holes for them in that aspect to string along with Moscow. Otherwise, if she is able to step on court, I expect a harsh battle.
The matches will be broadcasted here: http://tvstart.ru/
Rahimova is a disaster so far. Carcaces a little bit better, but not enough.
Bravo for Scandicci. They are WORLD CLASS TEAM so I’m not surprised at all for their victory. If they keep improving they will fight for big things this season like everyone expected from them. Conegliano didn’t lost against some weak team so I’m not afraid for them at all. I believe that Seria A has one of the best teams in the World, I repeat on of the best, so every upset is normal.
Not really. We have already arrived beyond the 9th round and no team among the expected top-3, neither Conegliano nor Novara or Scandicci, has even lost a game against any team outside of the expected top-3, i.e they have only lost against each other. In other words, neither one of the primary contenders Pomi, Bergamo nor Monza or Busto has managed to accumulate even a single win against top-3 opposition. This suggest the league isnt highly balanced whatsoever and that every upset is rather a sensation in the grand sense of the word rather than being reduced to mere routine for the most part. In theory, purely based on factors such as the number of "stars" in the squads or so, the league might give the impression of being more balanced than it de facto is judged by the hard facts, since some of the contenders recruits have not lived up to the high expectations so far, such as Carcaces, Smarzek, Rahimova, Kakoloewska, Salas, Herbots and the injured Buijs. Just compare with the situation in Russia where both Moscow and Kaliningrad, #1 and #2 in the standings, have lost to Uralochka, ranked #6, while Uralochka in turn has lost to Krasnodar, here we can speak of unpredictibility.
Btw I cannot prevent myself from laughing while hearing how the italian commentators pronouce Haak, it was almost intangible for one to recognize her name when they mentioned it at first. They usually pronounce it "Hook" 
Haak played a brilliant game. 29 pts for her in merely four sets. This performance was probably even better than her 33 pts game in CL (5-set match) a couple of weeks ago.
Haak is underperforming. Last season their was no match in which She played bad but this season We saw that many times. She is still great, still very young but that is something what I noticed this season. Scandicci is doing nice job but when She is on fire they are very dangerous team.
Malinov is playing better she is giving everyone sets, not only to Haak and now She is doing better. Much better second set for Scandicci.
She has 22 pts after three sets played. Haak is a bit streaky for sure, she has her "on" and "off" periods during most of the games, but its nothing strange with that and I presume she will emerge as a more balanced player with the experience of time.
Opposite and Martyna Łukasik will be converted to OH.
I see, but then I presume the intention they have is to use her as back-up for Stysaik?
Sanja Popovic (CRO,OPP) in Chemik Police.
I wonder whether the plan is that she´s going to play OH in Chemik? Because they already have Stysiak on that position.
Just started watching. Babeshina is setting for Moscow, not Ognjenovic. Kadochkina and Bavykina plays as the two wingers for Kazan, no Kotikova on court right now at least.
EDIT: Moscow won 3-1. Not a high quality game whatsoever based on the 4.set I watched at least.
190 cm up player is the standard for today’s volleyball. But i think brazil shohld have a player between 183-185 jumps high serves well passes well spikes hard..
Gabi is in the contention but she is just 176cm
Gabi´s height is 180 cm according to FIVB, WoW and Wiki.
http://japan2018.fivb.com/en/c…-braga-guimaraes?id=69450
its like comparing an apple with a pear..however i feel like being agree with you for some reason
It´s just that the men´s tournament had a more loop-sided geographical selection wheareas the female tournament is more diversified through its balance between the hemispheres with three, all weak, teams from Asia while in the men´s tournament 6/8 teams came from Europe and with a Brazilian team as one of the remnants. I am sure the male tournament would have looked far more "amateurish" in case it had comprised crews from the cannon-fodder hotbeds of Kazakhstan and Thailand as well.
I can watch it in its entirety on TV but I don't really feel like it.
Minas vs Volero sounded interesting, maybe I'll take a look at it tonight.
I would rather prefer Serbia vs Denmark in womens handball ECH tonight if I was from Serbia, although I am not a particulary entusiastic handball-follower at all. The quality is very dull so far in this tournament to me.
Club Italia took the 1.set against Conegliano (with Nagaoka instead of Fabris as OPP in the 1.set (Fabris replaced her in the 2.set) and Tirozzi instead of Sylla), still very impressive for a junior team. This team is for real. Now they have snatched at least a set against several of the best teams in the league. Interestingly, they have done this with their on paper most hyped-up player, Pietrini, locked up on the bench.
Attention: it seems, that Krasnodar didn't show up at the rather remote Sakhalin peninsula (farthest voyage in the league of course), so Juchno Sakhalinsk got formally a three times 25:0 victory awarded. Has anybody more informations regarding that? An issue at the Krasnodar airport maybe (there were messages regarding cancellation of flights there)?
Kazan barely survived in the second most eastern location of Krasnoyarsk in the tie-break, but got only two points of course.
Irina Koreleva accomplished the mind-boggling feat of 11 blocks (!) in this game. She also scored 12 pts in attack as well as three aces to go for a total of 26 pts in sum or all-in-all. Not bad for a middle blocker.
Another occurence worthy of a remark, the 15-year old Kadochkina obtained some decent amount of playing time, as a winger, most so far for her this season in the Superleague, from the coach and did fairly well in attack (5/9) although her reception was a bit below par from what you can expect at this level, hardly surprising since she is an opposite originally.
Pavel Moroz isnt playing for Dinamo-Lo, anybody knows why? Although even without him they defeated Nova away yesterday.
