Alexei Dmitrievich Savrasenko

Alexei Sawrasenko
Player information
Full name	Alexei Dmitrievich Savrasenko
birthday	February 28, 1979
place of birth	Krasnodar, Soviet Union
size	215 cm
position	center
Club information
society	UNICS Kazan
league	PBL / VTB
Jersey number	14th
Clubs as active
1995–2002 Olympiacos Piraeus 2000–2001 → GS Peristeri 2003–2009 PBK CSKA Moscow 2009 BK Spartak Saint Petersburg 2009–2010 MBK Dynamo Moscow 2010–2011 BK Khimki 2011–2012 UNICS Kazan Since 2012 Kuban locomotive 000 0 0
National team
2001-2008	Russia

Alexei Dmitrievich Zavrasenko medal table
Basketball (men)
Russia
European Championship
gold	2007 Spain

Alexei Dmitrijewitsch Savrasenko ( Russian Алексей Дмитриевич Саврасенко ; born February 28, 1979 in Krasnodar , RSFSR ) is a Russian basketball player . Sawrasenko first played in Greece, in particular with Olympiacos from Piraeus and has Greek citizenship . His Greek name is Alexis Amanatidis ( Greek Αλέξης Αμανατίδης ). In 2002 he went back to his homeland. With the Russian national team, Sawrasenko was European champion at the 2007 European Basketball Championship. At the moment (2012/13) Sawrasenko is active for Lokomotive Kuban Krasnodar .

Club career

Greece

Sawrasenko went abroad to Olympiacos at an early stage and made his debut there in the 1995/96 season as a 17-year-old. He took on the Greek citizenship in order not to further burden the foreign contingent of Olympiakos, but was mostly only used as a supplementary player from the bench under coach Dušan Ivković . Sawrasenko won the Greek championship with Olympiakos in 1996 and even the triple in 1997 when they beat FC Barcelona in the FIBA Euroleague . Olympiakos had filled the front court positions with Panagiotis Fasoulas , Dragan Tarlać and the German Christian Welp , so Sawrasenko was not used as a junior player during the Final Four tournament. Two years later they made it again in 1999 in the Final Four tournament of the most important European Cup competition and took third place. When Sawrasenko wanted to compete for the Russian national team at the 2000 Olympic Games , there was a similar controversy as with Tarlać about his Greek citizenship. Since Olympiakos used Sawrasenko's Greek citizenship to sign additional legionnaires , it was of no interest that Sawrasenko was counted as a Russian. Sawrasenko finally decided not to take part in the Olympic Games.

In the following season 2000/01 Sawrasenko was loaned to the Athens suburb GS Peristeri , where previously the "Serbo Greeks" Marko Jarić and Milan Gurović played. With the help of Euroleague top scorer Alphonso Ford , Peristeri made it to the round of 16 of the ULEB Euroleague 2000/01 , which was played for the first time and which replaced the old FIBA ​​Euroleague and the European Champion's Cup from 2001. At Peristeri, Sawrasenko was also used permanently and in the Euroleague he had a good 9 points and almost 7 rebounds on average with a playing time of a good 26 minutes per game . In the Greek championship they were eliminated in the semifinals against his former club Olympiakos, to which he then returned. With Olympiacos he was eliminated in the second group stage of the best sixteen teams in the ULEB Euroleague 2001/02 against the eventual title winner and Greek arch-rival Panathinaikos Athens , who were defeated in the semifinals of the Greek championship, but then the final series for the championship against AEK Athens lost. In December 2002, Sawrasenko left Olympiacos and returned to his native Russia.

Russia

In February 2003, Sawrasenko joined CSKA Moscow, who had previously had to give up the Russian championship title to Ural Great Perm for the first time in 2001 and 2002 . With CSKA he not only won the Russian championship in all subsequent years, but also reached the Final Four tournament of the most important European club competition ULEB Euroleague with this club in all seasons . After a fourth place in 2003 and 2005 and a third place, this competition was won in 2006 by winning the final over defending champion Maccabi Tel Aviv . This success was repeated in 2008 against the same opponent, as the defending champion they lost in 2007 to Panathinaikos Athens. From 2005 to 2007 they also won the Russian cup competition and got the Russian double . With the triple 2006 Sawrasenko is next to Šarūnas Jasikevičius and his Moscow teammates David Andersen and Matjaž Smodiš one of the few players who was able to win a triple including the Euroleague with two different clubs. In January 2009 Zavrasenko left CSKA and joined Spartak from Saint Petersburg until the end of the season . With Spartak they beat third-placed Dynamo Moscow in the play-off quarter-finals of the Russian championship somewhat surprisingly and then took fourth place in the Russian championship.

For the 2009/10 season Sawrasenko signed a contract with Dynamo and returned to Moscow. Dynamo played this season under coach Sergei Bazarevich without legionnaires and achieved a remarkable fourth place in the Russian championship. In the second most important European club competition Eurocup 2009/10 , however, they had no chance and lost all six preliminary round matches. For the 2010/11 season, like Sergei Monja, he signed a contract with the runner-up from the Moscow suburb of Khimki . With BK Chimki they lost again the final series of the Russian championship against CSKA. But you could defeat this opponent in the Eastern European VTB United League after a narrow final victory and win the title for Chimki. About the qualification one also reached the ULEB Euroleague 2010/11 , where one was eliminated with BK Chimki in the preliminary round. For the 2011/12 season Sawrasenko signed with UNICS from Kazan . As the winner of the 2010/11 Eurocup, UNICS is directly qualified for the 2011/12 ULEB Euroleague , so Sawrasenko was involved in every ULEB Euroleague up to the 2009/10 season. For the 2012/13 season, Sawrasenko moved to the Kuban Krasnodar locomotive, with whom he won the Eurocup in the same season .

National team

After Sawrasenko could not take part in the 2000 Olympic Games , he played for the first time at the 2001 European Basketball Championship in the team of the Russian national team . In the quarter-finals, they lost to the later bronze medalist Spain and, after two wins in the placement round, reached fifth place and qualification for the 2002 World Cup . At the 2002 World Cup they lost the opening games against the eventual semi-finalists New Zealand and eventual runners-up Argentina . After a mandatory win over Venezuela , further defeats against the hosts United States and the eventual bronze medalist Germany followed in the second round . In the end it was enough for tenth place at this World Cup.

At the EM 2003 they won in the preliminary round over defending champions Serbia and Montenegro , but lost in the quarter-finals against France and all the remaining placement games. In the end, they finished eighth and missed qualifying for the 2004 Olympic Games . At the EM 2005 they won the first two games convincingly, but then lost one after the other to the later finalists Germany, in the quarter-finals to the eventual European champions Greece and all subsequent placement games. In the end, they finished eighth again and thus also missed qualifying for the 2006 World Cup .

In 2006 David Blatt became the Russian national coach and was able to successfully qualify the team for the 2007 European Championship finals. In the finals, they won all games except for a significant defeat in the second round against hosts Spain. In the final they met Spain again and were able to knock down the favored hosts with one point in the final minute. Participation in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing was also achieved. The European champions disappointed at the games and only won one preliminary round game and dropped out early. This was Sawrasenko's last participation in the finals with the Russian national team.

successes

• European Champion 2007
• Euroleague winners (3 ×): 1997, 2006, 2008
• Winner of the Eurocup 2013
• Champion Russia (6 ×): 2003-2008
• Champion Greece (2 ×): 1996, 1997

Web links

• SAVRASENKO, ALEKSEY - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB (English)
• archive.fiba.com: Players - Alexei SAVRASENKO (RUS) - Overview of participation in FIBA tournaments (English)
• PBC CSKA Moscow | Team | Aleksey Savrasenko player profile on the website of CSKA Moscow (English, as of 2009)
• Aleksey Savrasenko in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Without a verifiable source, it is said that his mother was of Greek descent.
2. ^ All The Final Fours / 1997 in Rome, Italy. ULEB Euroleague , accessed October 30, 2011 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} САВРАСЕНКО НЕ БУДЕТ ИГРАТЬ ЗА РОССИЮ НА ОЛИМПИАДЕ-2000. SportsExpress.ru, July 20, 2000, accessed October 30, 2011 (Russian).