Khachanov's battle for the title, a new chance for Nagorny and the first athletics medals: what to expect on the ninth day of the Tokyo Games

The ninth competitive day of the Olympics will be eventful.

Athletes will compete for 25 sets of awards, as well as compete in qualifications.

After a short break, gymnasts will return to the fight for awards on individual apparatus.

Floor exercise is not a hallmark for Nikita Nagorny, but in qualifying he took second place.

Therefore, this time too, he will be able to count on a medal of any dignity, and the Korean Sunhyun Ryu will compete with him.

In exercises on horseback, Russia will be represented by David Belyavsky, but it will be extremely difficult for him to resist the Japanese Kohei Kameyama, the Korean Lee Chikai, the Irishman Rhys McClenaghan and other specialists in this sport.

Angelina Melnikova will be able to replenish her collection with one more medal - all the more, for this she will have two whole chances.

Together with Lilia Akhaimova, she will perform in the vault, and with Anastasia Ilyankova - on equal uneven bars.

The removal of Simone Biles significantly increases the likelihood of winning awards, although the American Jade Carey and the Belgian Nina Dervel are unlikely to agree to give the victory to the Russians.

And in athletics, high jump medals will be awarded.

Here medals of the highest dignity of Russia can be brought by the silver and bronze medalists of the World Championship in Qatar, Ilya Ivanyuk and Mikhail Akimenko.

Both successfully performed at the pre-Olympic tournaments, having won victories at the stages of the "Diamond League".

Their main competitor will be Mutaz Barshim, who is ahead of the Russians at the home championship of the planet.

Also one of the main events of the day will be the final matches of the tennis tournament. In the men's singles, Karen Khachanov and Alexander Zverev will fight for gold. Despite the difference in the rating position and the more impressive track record of the German, it is not easy to single out a favorite in this confrontation, as evidenced by the score of personal meetings - 2: 2. The Russian got in excellent shape in Tokyo, knocking out Kei Nishikori and Diego Schwartzman during the tournament. But the asset of the fourth seeded is an even more impressive achievement - a victory over the first racket of the world Novak Djokovic.

And in the mixed category, two historical awards of Russia at once have already been provided, and the fans only have to decide which of the couples to root for in the final - Anastasia Pavlyuchenkov and Andrei Rublev or Elena Vesnina and Aslan Karatsev. It is interesting that these duets could have looked different, which means that the result would have been different. Together with Rublev, Veronica Kudermetova was supposed to play, and Vesnina completely replaced Daria Kasatkina, who did not go to Tokyo, and she had to be persuaded to perform in the mixed doubles.

Six sets of awards will be raffled off at once in swimming. Kirill Martynychev will try his hand at the 1500 m freestyle. In the preliminary heat, he finished eighth, so in the final it will not be easy for him to confront the world champion in this discipline Florian Wellbrock and the Olympic triumphant of Rio de Janeiro Gregorio Paltrinieri. The leader in the selection in many ways unexpectedly became the Ukrainian Mikhail Romanchuk, who won the bronze in Tokyo at a distance of 800 m. Perhaps he will bring the first gold for his team.

In addition, there will be a combined 4 x 100 m relay for men and women on Sunday. The Russians qualified from third place, 1.64 seconds behind the winners, Italians. In the final, the team will be represented by the strongest line-up - Evgeny Rylov, Kliment Kolesnikov, Vladimir Morozov and Anton Chupkov. Probably, for the latter, this swim will be one of the final ones in his career, so the whole four will be additionally motivated to win awards. Women, on the other hand, have much less chance of this: in the preliminary swim, they became only seventh.

Foil players will fight in the team championship. In the quarterfinals, the domestic team represented by Anton Borodachev, Kirill Borodachev, Vladislav Mylnikov and Timur Safin will meet with the Hong Kong national team. The Russians are the current Olympic champions in this type of program (only Safin remained from that squad in Tokyo), but this time winning a medal will be a miracle, given the not very successful performance of the athletes in the individual tournament.

Maria Polyakova made her way to the final of diving from a three-meter springboard from 11th place. In the semifinals, the lead was predictably captured by the representatives of China Tingmao Shi and Han Wang. Most likely, it is they who will share the awards of the highest dignity, and the rest, including the Russian woman, two-time medalist of the Games Jennifer Aibel, three-time European champion Tina Punzel and others, will be able to count only on prizes.

BMX will host the women's and men's freestyle finals. In the preliminary races, Elizaveta Posadskikh showed only the ninth result, so on Sunday it will not be easy for her to fight with the leaders - the titled Hannah Roberts, who has not lost a single official competition since 2018, and Nikita Ducarroz, who is on her heels. Irek Rizaev showed a more successful result in qualifying, becoming the fifth, therefore, he may well compete with the reigning world champion Logan Martin and the winner of the World Cup Rim Nakamura.

The wrestling tournament also starts on Sunday, in which the Russians are traditionally contenders for medals. In the 1/8 finals of the up to 60 kg category, the 2018 world champion Sergey Emelin will meet with Sebi Makhmud. At this stage, he should not have any problems, and the meeting with the main rival in this division, the Japanese Kenichiro Fumita, will take place only in the final. The representative of the category up to 130 kg Sergey Semyonov will examine another Egyptian, Abdelatif Mohamed. And in the women's tournament, great hopes are pinned on the 2012 London champion, the most experienced Natalia Vorobyova, performing in the category up to 76 kg. In the 1/8 finals, she will be opposed by Samar Khamza.

Boxer Imam Khatayev, who knocked out Gazimagomed Dzhalidov ahead of schedule in the quarterfinals and has already secured a bronze medal for himself, will meet with the bronze medalist of the 2019 World Championship Benjamin Whittaker in the semifinals of the light heavyweight category.

Also in the semi-finals of the welterweight division, Andrei Zamkova will fight, where he will be opposed by the extremely difficult Cuban Ronel Iglesias, who became the winner of the London Olympics and the bronze medalist of the Beijing Games.

The rivals met twice in 2018 and won one victory each.

Also, Albert Batyrgaziev and Erdenebat Tsendbaatar from Mongolia (featherweight), world champion Gleb Bakshi and young representative of Haiti Darrel Walsen (middleweight) and Ivan Veryasov and the second seeded tournament Kamshybek Kunkabaev (heavyweight) will compete for reaching the semifinals.

The beach girls Nadezhda Makroguzova and Svetlana Holomina, who successfully performed at the group stage, will fight for the quarterfinals with not the most eminent Latvians.

Then they will have to play with the winners of the USA - Canada match.

And the Russian national volleyball team will play its final match in Group B. It will play last-placed Tunisia and, if successful, will be able to count on reaching the playoffs from first place.

The last match in the group stage will be played by domestic water polo players, and the local team will oppose them.

They also have already solved the problem of reaching the quarterfinals, however, the final balance of power in quintet B will depend on this match.