Korabelka vs Proton 3:2 — A Five-Set Volleyball Thriller

Some matches you cover, and some matches grab you by the throat and don’t let go until the final whistle. Korabelka hosting Proton in Round 23 of the 2025/2026 Russian Women’s Superleague was firmly in the second category.

It started rough for the home side. Proton edged the first set 25-23, and the arena went quiet for a moment. But Korabelka came back with intent — the second and third sets went 25-17 and 25-22, with sharper attacks and a defensive wall that gave me plenty of peak-action frames to work with. Momentum seemed settled. Then Proton reset the narrative in set four, taking it 25-19 and forcing a decider. Two-all. Everything on the line.

A tiebreak in volleyball is pure adrenaline compressed into fifteen points. Nobody breathes normally — not the players, not the bench, not the crowd, and definitely not the photographer crouching courtside. The lead swapped hands multiple times, and every rally felt like match point. Korabelka finally closed it out 15-13, and the eruption that followed was the kind of raw, unscripted emotion that no amount of planning can manufacture. Players piled onto each other, the crowd roared, and I kept shooting because that’s when the real photos happen — in the seconds right after the final point, when nobody is posing and everyone is feeling everything at once. Five sets of sports photography gold, right here in Saint Petersburg.

See the full gallery with the best moments from Korabelka vs Proton.