The Spanish AWPer said they stick to their plan after a bad start on Mirage.
9z and their Spanish AWPer Antonio "Martinez" Martinez had a successful debut at BetBoom Dacha CS2 2024 on Saturday, Aug. 24 as they overcame Falcons by 2-1 and are now one step closer to making the playoffs.
The South American mix won the first map on Mirage by 13-5 after they found themselves 5-1 down on the T-side. Falcons reacted on Dust 2 and tied the series with a convincing 13-7 victory, but fell short on Nuke and saw 9z run away with the match with a 13-10 win.
Esports.gg interviewed Martinez, who was undoubtedly the man of the match with 50 kills and only 32 deaths throughout the three maps and discussed this important result for 9z.
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Post-match interview with Martinez
When esports.gg asked what fueled 9z to win 12 rounds in a row against Falcons on Mirage, Martinez told us that they followed their plan regardless of being 5-1 down.
"We played our game, we were losing by 5-1 like you said, and in our minds we didn't care about the scoreboard," Martinez said. "We have to play round by round, and we just followed our plan."
Unfortunately for 9z, they didn't carry the momentum to Dust 2 and saw Falcons put on a dominant performance of their own. Emil "Magisk" Reif and co. won their T-half by 9-3, and though 9z were getting closer to tie the game in the second half, a technical pause cooled them off, and Falcons started playing better after it.
As for Nuke, the final map, it was looking like it would go Falcons' way after Magisk won an important clutch versus Martinez in the first half that fueled them to start scoring more points. The international team had a great start in the second half too, but once gun rounds started, 9z had all the right reads and won the game.
A determinant point was that Franco "dgt Garcia, for example, always seemed ready to punish Falcons' aggression and wrap around the round.
"As I said before, we played our game, but we practice to adapt our game based on what they're doing," Martinez said. "We know if we got an entry kill, they'd try to do something, to get information. After we got the first kill, we chilled, because we knew they like to play for info and we punished them."
Following this victory, 9z will return to the server on Sunday, Aug. 25 to play the winner of BetBoom versus paiN Gaming. If 9z win this next match in group A, they'll secure their spot in the playoffs.
That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more BetBoom Dacha CS2 2024 coverage live from Belgrade.