The Phygital Basketball with SBER tournament ended at the Kazan Expo. The Russian Liga Pro Team became the champion of Games of the Future, beating the American R10 Team USA in the final. The third place was taken by another team from Russia, Ural Basket.
16 teams from 13 countries took part in the tournament with a prize fund of $1.25 million. In Phygital Basketball with SBER, a match consists of two stages in a 2×2 format. The first one is in the basketball simulator up to 19 points, the second one is on the LED floor up to 39 points or until the end of seven minutes. The winner is determined by the amount of points scored. In case of a draw, the participants make a series of free throws. More information about the rules of discipline and the tournament schedule can be found at the link.
3rd place match
Ural Basket vs. MDMX – 40:26 (19:16)
MDMX forward Wenxuan Zhang spoke about the team’s mood for the match with the Urals the day before: “The Russians can relax, they are much stronger than us, we know that we will lose.” Wenxuan’s examination turned out to be accurate. Even the digital stage, where the Chinese are especially strong, remained after Ural Basket. Andrey Yngkura Kurchenko and Roman Romchik_8 Derevyankin blurred the opening a little, but then got involved and earned three points of advantage. On the LED floor, Semyon Debda was the soloist, who threw everything that did not fly into the hoop in the semi-finals with R10 Team USA. MDMX tried to stop the opponent by all means, which resulted in a huge number of fouls. Derevyankin even suffered an ankle injury. However, the outcome was predetermined – a minute before the siren, Debda scored the 40th point with a long throw and ended the match ahead of schedule.
“It’s a cool tournament. Of course, we wanted to take a higher place, but the third one is not bad either. We feel satisfied. Is MDMX a strong esports player? You know, this is the question we get asked after every match. All of our opponents had strong cyber players, so what? We beat everyone! It’s time to admit that we have strong cybers,” said Semyon Debda.
“The result is fair, the opponent played well in the simulator, and then outplayed us on the court. But for our team, the fourth place is a good result. We have prepared for the competition with difficult opponents, and we have gained excellent experience. We will work hard and perform better at the next Games of the Future!” promised Zhengyang Jiang from MDMX.
Final
R10 Team USA vs. Liga Pro Team – 32:34 (19:18)
The match for the Trophy of Games of the Future will be remembered for a long time by the spectators gathered in the tribunes of Kazan Expo. In the digital part, one of the strongest players in North America, Matthew Sean Bash Robles, and three-time Russian cyberbasketball champion Mikhail BigBabyMish Panchenko came together. It was an uncompromising confrontation, in which every goal scored was followed by an effective attack from the opponent. The stage ended with a minimal victory of R10 – 19:18. The titans met on the court: Leonardo Brankinho and Jonatas di Melo against Shalva Shatashvili and Mikhail Yudov. The teams showed bright, dynamic and strong basketball. The intrigue persisted until the final siren. With the score at 31:33, the Russians did not realize their attack, and 7 seconds before the end, R10 reduced the gap to a minimum! But they couldn’t do more. Liga Pro Team is the champion of the first Games of the Future.
“It was a pleasure to play in such a great tournament and in such a beautiful, but cold city,” said Leonardo Branquinho. “We played against decent teams, but still counted on the first place. Well, it’s a sport. I can’t say that Liga Pro surpassed us in some way in the finals, they were just luckier.”
“It’s a great game, I’m very happy. It’s always nice to meet the American team in the finals, and even more so to win,” Shalva Shatashvili said. “We beat the strong guys who took fourth place at the World Championships. I can call the victory at Games of the Future the main one in my career. These competitions will give a huge boost to the development of phygital basketball. If the prize money remains at the same level, the competition will be wildest at the next Games, I promise.”
Information:
Games of the Future is an international multisport tournament in the phygital concept, a sports show of a new format combining competitions in physical and digital dimensions. The technology partner is VK Play. More than 270 teams and more than 2,000 athletes from 107 countries are taking part in 21 innovative disciplines in the first Games of the Future. The competitions are divided into five categories, or challenges: sports, tactical, battle, technical, speedrun.
Title Sponsor is PAO Gazprom
General Sponsors:
PAO Gazprom Neft G-Drive
PAO Sibur Holding Sibur
OAO Russian Railways
OOO VK Company VK Play
PAO Sberbank SBER
OOO PMBK (Liga Stavok)
OOO INTERROS Holding Company Interros
PAO Megafon Yota
Official sponsors:
OOO PBO System– Vkusno – i Tochka
PAO Sollers / UAZ
PAO Aeroflot
OOO Wildberries
OOO NTS Gradient – Influence
Roscosmos State Corporation
AO Positive Technologies
AO Russian Post
OOO Nanobarrier – HyDrop
AO Kaspersky Laboratory – Kaspersky
More information about the tournament can be found on the official channels of Games of the Future: