India’s female CS: GO prevailed over Sri Lanka in the South Asian Qualifiers to advance to the IESF Asian Championship which is set to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from July 10-17, 2023.
Led by team captain Swayambika Sachar (Sway) the vibrant team comprising Nidhi Salekar (Stormyyy), Shagufta Iqbal (xyaa), Dilraj Kaur Matharu (COCO), and Aastha Nangia (CrackShot) made lightwork of Sri-Lanka by defeating them by 16-3, 16-0 in the best-of-three matchup.
“It is a remarkable achievement for all of us, and I couldn’t be happier with our scintillating performance against Sri Lanka in the South Asia regionals.
The team has improved significantly in the last few months and we are constantly working on improving our gameplay by strategizing and practising rigorously,” Swayambika said after the win.
With a commanding display on both maps, the team lost only three rounds in the entire series courtesy of the individual brilliance of its roster that helped them thoroughly dominate the opposition.
It will now take on the female CS: GO outfits from Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong in a bid to qualify for the 15th World Esports Championships (WEC) in Iasi from August 24 – September 4, 2023.
India’s performance in the other categories
The Indian men’s CS: GO (Open) team comprising of team captain Harsh Jain (f1redup), Jaspreet Singh (SpawN), Sadab Khan (SK wow^), Piyush Kalwania (clouda), Nikhil Kathe (N1kace) and substitute Omkar Thube (omkar09) had earlier secured its place for the Asian Regionals on May 8.
In DOTA 2, team India comprising skipper Manav Kunte (mnz), Vishal Vernekar (HBK), Abhishek Yadav (Abhi-), Shahbaz Hussain (PinkMaN), Krish Gupta (Krish`), and substitute Jaikishan Malik (KaEL) will play its South Asian qualifiers from May 15.
The country’s well-renowned Tekken 7 professional Abhinav Tejan and eFootball athlete Ibrahim Gulrez have already secured their qualification at the 15th WEC.
It has a whopping prize pool of $500,000 (INR 4.12 crore) and is set to be the largest edition of the tournament to date with at least 130 countries participating in eFootball, DOTA 2, Tekken7, Mobile Legends, PUBG: Mobile and CS: GO.