( dpa ) - Russian club Zenit St Petersburg have all but qualified for the semi-final of the UEFA Cup with a convincing 4-1 victory at Bayer Leverkusen in a quarter-final first leg match played on Thursday.
Andrey Arshavin gave the visitors the lead in the 20th minute with a close-range effort, but Stefan Kiessling equalized on 33 minutes after a Zenit defender cleared the ball off the line but it came to the Germany striker.
The Russian side, who had already dominated proceedings in the first half, completely took over in the second half as they ran in a further three goals to put themselves in the driving seat ahead of the return leg.
Pavel Pogrebnyak, Aleksandr Anyukov and Igor Denisov with three goals in the space of 12 minutes killed any chance the home side had of coming back into the game.
The three other quarter-finals will be played later Thursday.