Denis Zakharov

The native of Belgorod, Denis Zakharov is a graduate of Viktor Shved, Honored Coach of Russia, who trained him at the local sports school.

He began his professional career with the Moscow region Sparta and Co club, where he was one of the leaders. Denis’s next clubs were Nizhny Novgorod (2013) and Moscow Dynamo (2013–2015).

As part of Moscow Dynamo, he won the bronze medal in the Super League (2015) and was recognized as the “Best Shooting Guard” of the championship. In the same season, together with the team he reached the final of the Russian Cup and on the strength of the tournament results he got the Final Four Best Point Guard prize.

After Moscow, Denis moved to Krasnoyarsk Enisey, and from there to Krasnodar Lokomotiv Kuban.

On the way to the Russian national team, Denis went through all the intermediate “stages”. He played for the Russian U16 cadet team at European Championships (2009) and for the Russian U20 youth team at European Championships (2012 and 2013). As part of the Russian student team, the back-court player won the bronze medal at the 2015 World Student Games in Gwangju. Two years later, Zakharov helped the reserve national team win the gold medal at the BRICS Sports Games in Guangzhou.

The 2019/20 season was a breakthrough in the career of Denis Zakharov. With Krasnoyarsk Enisey, it was the third season in a row for the Belgorod player who achieved his best scoring in the United League: 11.8 points, 2.4 rebounds and 2.1 assists in an average of 25 minutes on the floor. In addition to the good performance for the Krasnoyarsk club in 2020, Denis Zakharov also debuted in the Russian national team qualifying for EuroBasket 2021.