25.10.2007, 04:46
Lada and Hypo start in Togliatti

Last year's semi-final will repeat already in the first round of Group C.

Lada and Hypo start in Togliatti

After winning the Qualification Tournament 2 with three comfortable victories in Lublin, Aleksey Gumyanov and his team will begin this CL season at home. Their first opponent in Togliatti hall will be last season's CL semi-finalists, Hypo Niederösterreich.

Bliznova vs Tóth

Both teams seem to be on their peaks, ready for the upcoming CL challenges. For András Németh, this will be the debut in as a newly appointed Hypo coach. Hypo easily won tournaments in Bad Urach and Ljubljana and showed that they are well prepared for this season. Last test matches before the start of CL, Hypo played in Slovenia against Krim two weeks ago. They won both times 37:33 and 32:26. In both matches the best scorer was Timea Tóth who plays in outstanding form.

On the other side, Lada Togliatti were defeated by Oltchim Valcea and Slagelse in the Champions Trophy and ended in fourth, last position. However, Gumyanov's team are still unbeaten in the Russian Championship. In the last round, a home match played on Wednesday, they defeated Dinamo Volgograd 41:33 (19:16). Bliznova scored an impressive 17 goals, only three of them from 7-m shots. She can surely be decisive player in this match.

The great show between Lada and Hypo will take place in Togliatti on Saturday at 17:00. The referees will be Repensek and Pozeznik.

TEXT: Ivan Ambros