Zenit Open VTB League Season With 92-68 Win Over Uralmash

Basketball is the sport that makes me the most nervous before the first shoot of the season. Football gives you space and time; basketball gives you a hall, artificial light and players who move faster than your autofocus wants to admit. So on September 25, when Zenit hosted Uralmash Yekaterinburg in the VTB United League opener, I arrived early, picked my spot under the basket and hoped the summer hadn’t erased everything I know about shooting indoors.

The visitors, it turned out, had also arrived ready. Uralmash took the first quarter 24-23, with Chris Clemons doing a bit of everything: scoring, passing, picking pockets on defense. For ten minutes my camera kept drifting toward the away bench because that’s where the story was. Zenit answered in the second quarter, 19-14, and then came back after halftime as a different team. A 25-13 third quarter, a 25-17 fourth, and the game was over long before the final buzzer.

Ike Iroegbu was the man of the evening for Zenit: 17 points, five rebounds, and the kind of body language that makes a photographer’s job easy. Some players just photograph well, and he’s one of them. On the Uralmash side, Clemons finished with 15 points, four rebounds, four assists and two steals, and honestly deserved a better scoreboard.

Final score 92-68 to Zenit. From a sports photography point of view it was close to perfect: a real contest early, a clear narrative arc, plenty of emotion once the run started. Working as a sports photographer in Saint Petersburg means a long season of matches like this ahead, and this was a good way to shake off the rust. Season one, game one, cards full.

See the full gallery with the best moments from Zenit vs Uralmash here.