The first games of the 2022/23 season will be in St. Petersburg and Krasnoyarsk.
Zenit (Saint Petersburg) – UNICS (Kazan)
Time: 14:00 (Moscow time)
Place: Russia, Saint Petersburg, Sibur Arena
Broadcast: TV Start, Match TV, The League website
Zenit: the residents of St. Petersburg start the season with the status of League champions. You will have to defend the title from the very first minutes of the first game – Kazan UNICS will come to visit Sibur Arena. This duel will be a great opening season game, because in addition to high-quality basketball, there will be a whole scattering of mini-stories. For example, center Artem Klimenko played 4 seasons for UNICS and this summer moved to Zenit. There is also a reverse example: Jalen Reynolds made his debut in the League 4 years ago with the St. Petersburg club, and this offseason he became a player of the Kazan team. It will definitely not be boring in the first game of the new season.
UNICS: The Kazan club have seriously updated the roster in the summer, but already in the SuperCup they demonstrated that this season they will claim the highest places. So, in the bronze game of the pre-season tournament UNICS beat Partizan. However, it will be difficult for Velimir Perasovic team in St. Petersburg in the opening game: the offensive leader of the team Daryl Macon dropped out due to a hip injury, the participation of team captain Andrey Vorontsevich who missed the SuperCup is questionable.
Rivalry: Nenad Dimitrijevic vs. Thomas Heurtel. In the absence of Macon, the Macedonian point guard, who has already proved himself by scoring 30 points in the game with Partizan, will lead the UNICS offense. On the other side of the court, the ball will be in the hands of the French guard, the vice-champion of Europe who moved to Zenit just a week and a half ago.
Enisey (Krasnoyarsk) – Pari Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhny Novgorod)
Time: 18:00 (14:00 Moscow Time)
Place: Russia, Krasnoyarsk, Arena Sever
Broadcast: TV Start Triumph, The League website
Enisey: one of the main steps of the Krasnoyarsk team in the offseason was the retention of the head coach. Drazen Anzulovic led Enisey to the playoffs last season and helped the club’s office to preserve the backbone of the team and strengthening it. In particular, Angelo Warner led MINSK in points, assists and steals last season, moved to Krasnoyarsk. The Siberians team had a number of friendly gamess in Turkey and Anzulovic was satisfied with the preparation of his team. The first check is Pari NN.
Pari Nizhny Novgorod: the changes in Nizhny Novgorod are more serious: last year’s leaders – Astapkovich, Toropov, Kulagin – left the team. Following the results of the off-season, the Volga Region has 8 new players at once, but many of them are familiar to basketball fans: Dragan Apic was previously played for Loko and Zielona Gora, Nikola Jovanovic made it to Pari NN for the 2nd time, Maxim Salash and Vitali Liutych played for MINSK and Anton Ponkrashov in the presentation and he doesn’t need it at all. Despite the updates, Nizhny Novgorod proved to be quite successful in friendly games and even won the local Khayretdinov Memorial Cup.
Rivalry: Yauheni Beliankou vs. Maxim Salash. Both Belarusians became MINSK leaders in different seasons. Now the forwards will come face to face, while not playing for the capital of Belarus team.
