Plamen Konstantinov and his Lokomotiv Novosibirsk opened the quarter-final series of matches of the Russian Cup at home with a 2:3 loss to Belogorie, whose coach is Alexander Volkov.

The match in front of a packed stands turned out to be tense - in the first and fourth sets, the hosts failed to cope with the powerful play of their opponent and lost with a big score. At the end of the second and third sets, Plamen Konstantinov's team played more concentrated and managed to win their set points. In the decisive tie-break, the "Lions" from Belgorod once again showed their class - they secured their first victory in the series and 2 points, while Loko has only 1 point. The return leg of the Russian Cup quarter-final series will be played on November 9 in Tula. In case of a tie in victories and points won, a "golden set" is played.

"Lokomotiv" (Novosibirsk) – "Belogorie" (Belgorod) – 2:3 (17:25, 25:23, 25:23, 17:25, 7:15).

For the hosts, the top scorer was Marko Ivovic with 13 points, middle blockers Ilyas Kurkaev and Dmitry Lyzik scored 8 points each, and the "legionnaire" Yoandy Leal finished with 7 points.

For the winners, the top scorers were Al Hachdadi (24) and Tetyukhin (21).

"Belogorie won their sets by a large margin. I told the guys that we didn't deserve to win today. You can lose, but you can't lose this way. We lost two sets without a fight. In such sets, you have to play for every point, in every match, so we didn't deserve to win. But the result is such that we can draw conclusions and show a more even game in the return leg and fight for every point in every set. That is key," Plamen was quoted by the BO Sport correspondent after the match.

photos: lokovolley.com