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The sign-up list for the 72nd edition of the ZOTAC Duel Cup was truly astonishing, with all of the world's best players participating and the only notable absentee was none other than Alexei "Cypher" Yanushevsky. All others were present and roaring to go, showing everyone that the weeks of practise before will pay off and will give them one last opportunity to flex their muscles and scare some of their opponents.
Especially the attendance off all foreigners was a welcome change of pace, resulting in very interesting match-ups very early on. Pelle "fazz" Söderman fell in the Best-of-One phase, as did Marius "GUard" Ivanauskas and Marcel "k1llsen" Paul, immediately making clear that the competition would be heating up.
The Americans were all placed on the same side of the Bracket and the first meet was Shane "rapha" Hendrixson versus Tim "DaHanG" Fogarty. A repeat of their Intel Extreme Masters American Championship Finals would result in a different result this time around, as the Evil Geniuses player managed to take the Best-of-Three with a comfortable 2 to 0. After a long wait, it was time for him to face his team mate, Paul "czm" Nelson in the tournament's Semi-Finals and the latter seemed to be outclassed very quickly, not really being able to form a fist against Tim Fogarty and he would also exit the tournament with a 0 to 2 loss.
The other side of the Bracket witnessed an on-fire Kévin "strenx" Baéza who managed to knock out Marius Ivanauskas first and would then face Maciej "Avekkk" Krzykowski. The Pole had no part to play in the story on Furious Heights and lost 02:15 and when moving over to Lost World, the epilogue was more of the same, as the Frenchman could take the map with 05:00 and would be moving up against Anton "Cooller" Singov in their Semi-Final. In said match, the Russian Mousesports player took an early lead on Dismemberment and managed to outrun Kévin Baéza for the last four minutes to move over to Furious Heights. A real close match ensued and it all boiled down to a 06:07 win in favour of the French Fnatic player and Vertical Vengeance would again be the match decider between both. This time around, no lags nor untimely time-outs were necessary, as Kévin Baéza took control of the map early on and never let go, only giving up a handful of frags.
The Grand Final was a bit anti-climatic, unfortunately. Not for a lack of trying by the Evil Geniuses player, though, as he really kept in the maps for as long as he could but would always run out of time to pull one last comeback and quickly found himself two maps down, having lost both Lost World and Furious Heights. Tim Fogarty fans let off some steam and when they saw Kévin Baéza storm Aerowalk, they knew the match was over and the American would have to be satisfied with second place.
Final Standings:
Kévin "strenx" Baéza - €100
Tim "DaHanG" Fogarty
Anton "Cooller" Singov //
Related
ZOTAC Duel Cup #72 - Bracket
edited 2011-02-28 13:58:11
wanted to chill a bit