Zenit U21 will play in VTB United Youth League Final

Zenit U21 defeated SSOR Lokomotiv Kuban in the semifinal of the VTB United Youth League 2025/26 season. The game took place today, April 30, as part of the Final Four, which is being held in St. Petersburg on the court of the Blue-White-Sky Blues' Basketball Academy.

A confident start from the St. Petersburg side largely determined the course of the semifinal clash. After the first quarter alone, Roman Knyazev's team led 25:10. The Krasnodar side spent every second until the final buzzer trying various ways to close the gap on the scoreboard and put together several good runs, showing character and toughness, which added tension toward the end. However, Lokomotiv could not turn the game around. Zenit U21 won 83:73 and now await their opponent in the final.

The most productive players for our team today were Egor Evstafiev (22 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists), Ilya Krivykh (18 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block shot), Alexander Porotnikov (12 points, 4 steals, 2 rebounds, 1 assist), Mikhail Presnyakov (11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 assist, 1 block shot).

In the main game of the season, the Blue-White-Sky Blues will face MBA‑MAI‑Junior, who defeated CSKA‑Junior in their semifinal 72:65. The final will start at 17:00 St. Petersburg time. Admission for fans is free!

Roman Knyazev, Zenit U21 head coach:

From the very beginning, our goal was to shut down the opponent's strengths and deny them space. Early on, that worked well: as long as we kept the balance among the lineups and foul trouble didn't start, the game was under control. But then we picked up unnecessary fouls and drifted away from our discipline a bit. Ilya Krivykh picked up four fouls, so we had to protect him, which of course gave the opponent confidence and threw off our rhythm a little.

That's the essence of sports, especially youth basketball — the game never goes perfectly smoothly; there are always ups and downs. Today, it's pleasant that our ups were more numerous.

In the second half, on the contrary, we lacked composure: against their switching defense, we practically couldn't get anything going. The opponent found the key to us, even though we had played confidently against that kind of defense during the season. Perhaps the addition of players from the Superleague made a difference — we lost some organization and clarity in choosing our attacking directions, which made our play more chaotic. 

Now we'll review the plays, show where and how we should have played, where to direct our attacks. I hope that in the next game we will look more focused — both organizationally and psychologically.

Ilya Krivykh, Zenit U21 center:

In the third quarter, we had a major lapse. I think we only scored about 14 points. We couldn't convert our attacks against their switching defense, missed shots, while Lokomotiv made everything. Then we pulled ourselves together and managed to grind out the win. In my head, the score always feels like it's tied, but still, there was probably a moment of relaxation. But we were able to bounce back, so we're playing in the final tomorrow.