National player Nikolay Kolev, who plays for Greek club PAOK, played a strong match in his team's loss to visiting Spor Toto Ankara in the first quarter-final of the Challenge Cup tournament.At PAOK Sports Arena, the hosts failed to put up a fight against the team that eliminated Bulgarian Neftochimic from the tournament. The hosts, who reached this stage of the competition for the first time, faced a team that is in the top four of the Turkish championship. They could not resist their more skilled opponent and lost 1:3 (16:25, 22:25, 25:19, 23:25). Thus, the return match in Turkey looks very difficult for Kolev and company, who need to win with the same result and aim for a victory in a "golden set."

Before the match, the hosts honored American outside hitter Garrett Muagututia from the visiting team, who had previously played for the Thessaloniki team. Muagututia scored 8 points against his former team.
Nikolay Kolev finished the match with 12 points and an impressive 5 blocks. His teammate and former Hebar player Aleksandar Lyaphtov added 14 points.

The most productive player in the match was Spor Toto's Thomas Edgar, who scored 23 points. The return match is on January 29 in Ankara.The winner of the tie will meet the winner of the Lube and Aleksandar Nikolov - Groningen pairing, with the Italian team leading 1-0 in direct matches.