World Championships in in-game sports truly begin with the playoffs. The individual results of group matches are not critical - it is important in what state the team has reached the final phase of the tournament. For a week and a half, the Russian women's team, to put it mildly, did not shine at the Brazilian championship. But the time has come for decisive games - and the team of Igor Grudin, having gained a single victory over the Spaniards, was immediately in the top four.
It was the only quarterfinal whose fate hung in the balance until the last seconds. Both teams started briskly, easily let opponents go under their own ring, just as easily penetrating into someone else's. The Spanish team looked better in a quick shootout, and already in the fifth minute Grudin had to take a timeout. At this point, the scoreboard was 8:14. At the same time, the Spaniards accounted for six assists, while the Russians did not. A minute pause did not help, and by the end of the quarter the gap was double-digit - 21:11.
But the next ten minutes turned out to be exemplary for the Russian team. This was partly facilitated by the substitutions made by Domingo Diaz: Nuria Martinez, who entered the position of the point guard, clearly did not pull. And yet, the “zone” built by the Russians was impeccable - for the entire quarter, the rivals abandoned the game only once, and even then from a distance (naturally, Amaya Valdemoro). To the big break, the Russian team was already in the lead. True, this advantage was achieved by the efforts of mainly two players - Ilona Korstin and Natalia Vodopyanova.
In the future, the Russians overdid it a bit in rigidity - with fairly loyal refereeing, several fouls in the attack were shouted. Oksana Rakhmatulina received her fourth personal comment already in the middle of the third period. But soon, the fourth foul was received by Valdemoro, and her departure from the floor would be similar to the death of the Spaniards.
However, they lost with Valdemoro. Grudin’s wards held the decisive minutes of the match with utmost responsibility, and along with the leaders - Korstin and Maria Stepanova, who were under strict supervision, were not afraid to take on the game Vodopyanova and Shchegoleva. Tatyana Shchegoleva generally played her best match in the tournament. Problems in the end should not have arisen, but they arose.
Before the quarter-finals, the Russian team spent all their matches in Barueri. I came to Sao Paulo for the playoffs, but here, unfortunately, it started to rain. And although professional basketball has long been played in closed venues, spring (in Brazil it's spring now) rain almost caused injuries to several athletes at once. The roof of the sports palace in Ibirapuera waned, and dripped on the floor.
Oksana Rakhmatulina, sending another ball into the ring of rivals, stepped into a puddle, slipped and fell. Russia at that moment had plus five - and all that was required was to work out well in defense. But how to do this if the point guard is lying on the floor?
Valdemoro threw a three-pointer in this attack, and after half a minute she could have turned the game into overtime, but then they put such a “roof” on her that the ball couldn’t get into the ring. The Spaniards immediately fouled - and Vodopyanova from the free kick line deprived them of their last hopes of saving the game.
The remaining quarter-finals ended as they should have ended. The Australians confidently outplayed France. The hostesses of the tournament - the Brazilians - allowed the Czech team to play the first quarter on an equal footing, and at the beginning of the second they made a crazy breakthrough - 16: 0 in four minutes. The Americans in the match against Lithuania were also not particularly zealous at first, but in the first pause they got scolded by their coach Ann Donovan. As a result, in the second quarter only one Lithuanian basketball player was allowed to score - Sandra Valuyužite, and even a little (6 points), and in the third the Baltic team scored even less - 5. On the night of Friday, the US team met in the semifinals with the Russian team. Details of the decisive matches of the championship can be found in the next issue.
Mikhail Melnikov