Ilona Korstin: "The organization of the Final Four is really very good"
CEO of the VTB United League Ilona Korstin shared her comments following the first semifinal of the youth championship, in which Zenit U21 defeated SSOR Lokomotiv Kuban with a score of 83:73.
Before the first game of the Final Four, the League's top manager presented the Blue-White-Sky Blues' guard Alexander Protornikov with the award for MVP of the 2025/26 regular season.
— I congratulate Zenit on the victory. In truth, at the start of the game it was safe to say that Zenit were the favorites, and the first half showed that. But on the other hand, in the second half, Lokomotiv showed character. Lokomotiv's head coach really fired up his players, very emotionally, very loudly. Lokomotiv showed a completely different game in the second half and began to chase Zenit very actively, in an aggressive manner.
Zenit held on in this contest and secured a well-deserved victory, but the game was very interesting, it was emotional. The players fought to the end, showing perhaps the best they are capable of. All the leaders from both teams played well. And it's clear that the VTB Youth League has promising young talents who, I hope, will soon join the ranks of the main VTB United League teams.
— The Final Four returned to the Northern capital this year. What do you think about that?
— I think it's great. Lately, Saint Petersburg has become something of a basketball hub. We recently held the Final Four of our in-season WINLINE Basket Cup. It was really great in Saint Petersburg; I think we managed to put on a fantastic basketball celebration and delight the Petersburg fans. Now we're holding the youth Final Four in Saint Petersburg. We've had this experience before, it was positive, and we like everything here. The organization is really very good. We are grateful to the club for helping us with the organization; they have taken on a very large part of the groundwork, I would say. And therefore I think this interaction between the League and Zenit works very well.
