Today in St. Petersburg marks the beginning of the 10th Annual Vladimir Kondrashin and Alexander Belov Cup. Playing on the floor of the Jubileyniy Sports Palace will be CSKA Moscow, the Turkish club Efes Pilsen, the Italian club Virtus Roma and Hemofarm from Serbia and Montenegro, which agreed at the last minute to replace Tau Ceramica. The tournament’s prize fund is $50,000. The winner will receive $30,000, the runner-up $15,000, and the bronze medallist $5,000.
Dusan Ivkovic’s players arrived in the northern capital with the following roster: Thedoros Papaloukas, Marcus Brown, Anton Yudin, Sergey Panov, J.R. Holden, Yegor Vyaltsev, Sergey Monya, Viktor Khryapa, Alexey Savrasenko, Alexander Bashminov, Mirsad Turkcan and Dragan Tarlac. Last Thursday, these players won the Champions Cup tournament held in the city of Novi Sad (Serbia Montenegro).
The Army team will play its first game against the Italian club Virtus Roma (19:30 Moscow time). The winner of this game will play the winner of the other semifinal between Hemofarm and Efes Pilsen. Between the games there will be an opening ceremony and a laser show. The game will be shown delayed on RTR-Sport (20:15 Moscow time).
This morning CSKA held a 1 1/2-hour practice, after which it went to the hotel to relax. St. Petersburg met the club with its typical cool weather, but the floor of the Jubilee, which was brought in especially by CSKA, will likely heat up with a tough battle.
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