"Women's Challenge Cup 2022/2023"

- CONTENT--
The 15th Women’s EQU Challenge Cup (50th including the Cup Winners’ Cup and the Top Teams’ Cup) was held from November 22, 2022 to March 22, 2023 with 49 teams from 29 member countries of the European Volleyball Confederation. The winner of the tournament was the Italian Reale Mutua Fenera (Kieri).

Qualification system
Places in the CEV Challenge Cup 2022/2023 were distributed according to the CEV rating for the 2022/2023 season, taking into account the results of the performances of the club teams of the CEV member countries in the CEV Cup and the CEV Challenge Cup for three seasons (2018/2019-2020/2021). According to it, all CEV member countries were given the opportunity to declare their representatives in the Challenge Cup draw.

Countries with rating points that received the opportunity to include their representatives in the European Challenge Cup 2022/2023 (in parentheses - the representation according to the rating): Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Slovenia, Belgium, Greece, Finland, Austria, Serbia, Croatia, Spain, Portugal (all - 2 teams), Turkey, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Israel, Bulgaria, Netherlands, Kosovo, Latvia, Greece, Lithuania, Lithuania, Northern Cyprus, one team of Luxembourg, Cyprus (also-Day, Norway, Northern Cyprus). No applications were received from countries without rating points. Dismissed from participation in the Cup of the team of Russia and Belarus. Refused to participate the team of Slovenia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, Sweden. Only one team instead of two declared Hungary, Croatia, Spain. Additional places in the draw received: Switzerland (1), Greece (1), Austria (2), Serbia (1), Israel (1), Slovakia (2), Montenegro (1), Netherlands (1), Norway (1).

Participating teams

The drawing system
49 teams participated in the draw. At all stages of the tournament, the playoff system was used, that is, the teams were divided into pairs and held two matches with trips. The winner of the pair was a team that won two victories. In the case of equality of victories, the winner was the team that scored a greater number of points within the two-game series (for a victory of 3: 0 and 3: 1 3 points are given, for a victory of 3: 2 - 2 points, for a defeat of 2: 3 - 1, for a defeat of 1: 3 and 0: 3 points are not accrued). If both teams at the same time scored the same number of points, then an additional (“golden”) set was appointed, the winner of which went to the next round of the competition.

Qualification round

Maccabi (Haifa) – Kaunas-VDU (Kaunas)
November 24th. 3:0 (25:17, 25:19, 25:14).
November 25th. 3:0 (25:16, 25:12, 25:22). Both matches were played in Haifa.

Azerrail (Baku) – Slavia (Bratislava)
November 29th. 3:0 (26:24, 25:14, 25:21).
November 30th. 3:1 (25:20, 25:19, 19:25, 25:20). Both matches were held in Baku.

"Viesti" (Salo) - "Hapoel" (Kfar-Sava)
November 24th. 1:3 (25:22, 16:25, 15:25, 26:28).
November 30th. 0:3 (11:25, 17:25, 26:28).

"Kelag-Wildkats" (Klagenfurt) - "Prosteev"
November 23rd. 1:3 (16:25, 16:25, 25:21, 20:25).
December 1