Nigel Si­mon

Eu­ro­pean-based T&T in­door vol­ley­ballers, Akim Bushe and Sinead Jack, were both on the los­ing end with their re­spec­tive clubs in do­mes­tic play­offs match­es.

First year pro­fes­sion­al, and for­mer Big South East Port-of-Spain mid­dle-block­er Akim Bushe and his Mid­del­fart VK team-mates went un­der to Gen­tofte Vol­ley, 25-17, 21-25, 16-25, 26-24, 12-15 in the open­ing match of their best-of-three Den­mark Vol­ley Lig­aen fi­nal on wednes­day. Last night, Bushe and his team-mates, reg­u­lar sea­son win­ners tried to ex­tend the se­ries by win­ning game two, while the third and de­cid­ing en­counter, if need­ed is sched­ule for Sun­day.

In the Russ­ian Women's Su­per League, Jack and her Uralochka NMTK team-mates, com­ing off a "Gold­en Set" loss to Turkey's Bur­sa BB­SK in their CEV Chal­lenge Cup fi­nal, sec­ond-leg match on Sun­day, was de­feat­ed 12-25, 18-25, 14-25 by Di­namo Mosk­va in their first-leg semi­fi­nal with the sec­ond-leg set for to­mor­row (Sun­day).

Di­namo Kaza al­so took a 1-0 lead in­to its sec­ond-leg semi­fi­nal with Zarechie Odintso­vo af­ter a 25-16, 21-25, 25-8, 30-28 first-leg tri­umph.

Uralochka, 14-time Russ­ian cham­pi­ons ad­vanced to the semi­fi­nals over Di­namo Krasnodar based on more points won in their quar­ter­fi­nal se­ries which end­ed at 1-1. This af­ter Uralochka too the re­turn-leg 25-15, 16-25, 25-16, 19-25, 18-16 af­ter it was beat­en in the first-match, 21-25, 21-25, 25-20, 25-15, 10-15. In the oth­er quar­ter­fi­nal se­ries, Kazan whipped eight ranked Avtodor-Metar 25-18, 25-20, 18-25, 25-18 and 25-18, 25-23, 25-18; Di­namo Mosk­va crushed Pro­ton, 25-18, 25-13, 25-11 and 25-18, 25-13, 25-11 while Zarechie Odintso­vo, dumped Omich­ka 25-15, 26-24, 18-25, 25-15; and 25-21, 25-12, 25-16. On Sun­day last, Uralochka NMTK took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-two Women's CEV Chal­lenge Cup fi­nal to Turkey af­ter a 25-18, 27-25, 25-23 tri­umph on Wednes­day last.

How­ev­er, Bur­sa BB­SK com­plet­ed a ter­rif­ic come­back, 23-25, 25-21, 25-23, 25-18 and win over Uralochka to send the match in­to a gold­en set where it pre­vailed 15-11 af­ter trail­ing 3-7 at Cen­giz G�ll� Sports Hall. To­day, top T&T pro­fes­sion­al, Marc-An­tho­ny Hon­ore and SL Ben­fi­ca will look to put their dis­ap­point­ment of los­ing to Ser­bian out­fit SPC Vi­jvo­d­i­na in the CEV Cup fi­nal when they meet main ri­val, and A-1 Di­vi­sion reg­u­lar sea­son cham­pi­ons AJF Bas­tar­do in the first match of their best-of-five fi­nal.

The oth­er match­es will take place on April 25, May 2, and May 6 and May 9, if need­ed. SL Ben­fi­ca has al­ready won the Por­tu­gal Cup this sea­son.

Al­so on to­day, in the Ro­man­ian Women's Di­vi­sion, for­mer na­tion­al women's team cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle and CSM Bu­curesti faces CSU Galati in their best-of-five match se­ries for fifth spot from. The oth­er match­es are card­ed for April 19, 24 and 25 and 29 if need­ed.