Sports weekend with Izvestia

Football

The Russian Championship. Rubin — Spartak

After the resumption of the national football championship, the fight for the championship sharply escalated. Spartak Moscow managed to catch up with Krasnodar and Zenit St. Petersburg. Now these three teams share the first place with equal points. Spartak, which has already won seven victories in a row, will now have to consolidate its success following the results of the trip to Kazan as part of the upcoming 20th round of the Russian Premier League. There, the red-and-whites will have to play with the strong middle-class Rubin, who has repeatedly proved his ability to take points from the favorites. This game is considered central for the upcoming weekend.

March 9, 19:30, Ak Bars Arena (Kazan). Live broadcasts on Match TV and Match Premier

Mixed martial arts

UFC 313 Alex Pereira — Magomed Ankalaev

One of the most important fights of the year will take place in Las Vegas this weekend. The main match of the UFC 313 tournament will be a fight for the light heavyweight title between Brazilian Alex Pereira and Russian Magomed Ankalaev. Pereira remains the current holder of the champion belt in this weight category. The upcoming fight will be the fourth defense for the Brazilian. And Ankalaev, who is in first place in the UFC light heavyweight rankings, will make a second attempt to take this title. Two more of our fighters will also perform during the evening. In the preliminary round, heavyweight Rizvan Kuniev will face Americans Curtis Blades, and in the middleweight Armen Petrosyan will fight Brunn Ferreira.

March 9: 02:30, start of the tournament; 06:00, main card; 08:00, main fight. T-Mobile Arena (Las Vegas, USA). Live broadcasts on Match TV and Match! The fighter"

Tennis

The Masters Tournament

Traditionally, the Masters tournaments are considered the second most important in world tennis after the Grand Slam. The winners of these competitions receive 1,000 points each in their world ranking. For decades now, the first such tournament of the season has been held in March in Indian Wells, USA. The year 2025 was no exception. The first matches were held there this week, and the first participants of the 1/8 finals will be determined next weekend based on the results of the second and third rounds. Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, Karen Khachanov, Roman Safiullin, Veronika and Polina Kudermetov, Ekaterina Alexandrova, Daria Kasatkina, Lyudmila Samsonova, Anna Kalinskaya, Diana Schneider, Anastasia Potapova and Mirra Andreeva are competing for trophies from Russia.

March 7-9, 00:00 - 04:00, 21:00 - 00:00. Indian Wells Tennis Garden Stadium (Indian Wells, USA). Live broadcasts on the ATP and WTA websites

Ski racing

Russian Championship

The main start of the season in Russian skiing is coming to an end. In the village of Mirny near Kazan, it remains to compete for four sets of medals of the national championship — first in the women's and men's team sprints, and then in the women's and men's relay races. Three-time Olympic champion Alexander Bolshunov, who had been going through a crisis all season, managed to get ready for the Russian Championship and won two gold medals. Now he will try to consolidate his success at the finish of the tournament. Natalia Terentyeva, the main star of women's skiing, is aiming at the same thing. After the end of the championship, the athletes will have only a few official starts before going on vacation.

March 8, 12:00 - 15:08, team sprint. March 9, relay races: 11:00, women; 14:30, men. Mirny Ski and biathlon complex (Kazan). Live broadcasts on Match TV, Match! Arena" and "Match! The planet"

Biathlon

The Russian Cup. The final

The season in Russian biathlon is coming to an end. The Russian Cup, which has become the main regular tournament of the season due to the suspension of our athletes from international competitions, will end this week. Our best biathletes gathered in Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk region. They will compete for the last medals of the Russian Cup and determine the winners of the tournament based on the results of six starts for women and men — sprint, pursuit and mass start. Before the final, Natalia Shevchenko and Eduard Latypov remain the leaders of the overall standings.

March 7, sprint: 09:00, women; 13:00, men. March 8, pursuit race: 09:00, women; 12:00, men. March 9, mass start: 09:00, women; 12:45, men. Ski and biathlon complex named after Svetlana Ishmuratova (Zlatoust). Live broadcasts on Match TV, Match! Arena" and "Match! The planet"

Athletics

The finale of the "Snow Queen" series

The winter season for our athletes is coming to an end. The main start, the Russian Championship, has already passed. And now the Snow Queen competition series is coming to an end — its final in Moscow will be the last official indoor tournament for Russians and Belarusians in 2015. Next, preparations will begin for the main summer part, which will begin in May. On March 7, the second and last competitive day of the "Snow Queen" finals will take place, where you can see a number of our stars, including the world champion in the 110 m hurdles Sergey Shubenkov.

March 7, 4:05 p.m. - 5:50 p.m. CSKA Moscow Football and Athletics Arena. Live broadcast on "Match! Country"

Hockey

KHL Regular Season. Dynamo (Moscow) — Lokomotiv, SKA — Metallurg, Ak Bars - Avangard

Two weeks before the finish of the KHL regular season, viewers will be able to watch three top matches. In one of them, two leaders of the Western Conference will meet — Dynamo Moscow, which is coming in second, will host Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, which occupies the first place in the entire regular season. In addition, SKA St. Petersburg, stuck in the lower part of the playoff zone, will meet on its ice with the current Gagarin Cup winner Metallurg Magnitogorsk, who is trying to catch up with the leaders of the Eastern Conference. Ak Bars Kazan and Avangard Omsk are pursuing a similar goal — they will play against each other in the capital of Tatarstan and determine who will have a chance to climb into the top 4 of the East in the remaining period before the start of the playoffs and start the first round with home matches.

March 7, 19:30, VTB Arena (Moscow). March 8, 17:00: SKA Arena (Saint Petersburg); Tatneft Arena (Kazan). Live broadcasts on KHL TV, KHL Prime and Kinopoisk

Football

The French Championship. Toulouse — Monaco, Rennes — PSG. The MLS regular Season. Atlanta United — New York Red Bulls, D.C. United — Sporting Kansas City. The Spanish Championship. Real Sociedad — Sevilla

There are ten rounds left in the French championship. The issue of Matvey Safonov's PSG championship has been practically resolved. With the current gap of 13 points from second place, the capital's club has six wins left to secure gold. There will be a good chance for one of them next weekend, when the Russian goalkeeper's team will play away against Rennes. In turn, Alexander Golovin, who broke a long losing streak last week and returned to the top 4 of Monaco, will visit Toulouse, where he will try to strengthen his position in the fight for entry into the next Champions League draw. Arsen Zakharyan's eighth-placed Real Sociedad in the Spanish league continues to fight for entry into European competitions. In the next 27th round, he will host Sevilla FC. And in the USA, the third round of the new MLS league season will be played on the weekend. Alexei Miranchuk's Atlanta United will play at home with the New York Red Bulls, while Magomed-Shapi Suleymanov's Sporting Kansas City will travel to Washington for an away match with D.C. United.

March 7, 22:45, Toulouse Stadium (Toulouse, France). March 8, 19:00, Roazon Park (Rennes, France). March 9: 03:30: Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta, USA), Audi Field (Washington, USA); 23:00, Real Arena (San Sebastian, Spain). Live broadcasts on Okko and "Match! Football 2"

Basketball

VTB United League. Lokomotiv-Kuban — Zenit

There is just over a month left until the end of the regular season of Russia's main club basketball tournament. The four leaders of CSKA Moscow, Zenit St. Petersburg, Kazan UNICS and Krasnodar Lokomotiv-Kuban have long been separated from the rest. Any face-to-face match between these teams has a special status. Therefore, next weekend the audience may be extremely interested in the confrontation in Krasnodar, where Lokomotiv Kuban will host Zenit.

March 9, 17:00, Megasport (Moscow). Live broadcasts on Match TV