Movistar Riders took on the Chinese side of TYLOO in the second quarter-final match of the Global Esports Tour Dubai. The Spaniards prevailed in the end, but not without problems.
They first lost their map pick of Overpass 13-16 and then managed to get the better of their opponents on Ancient with the same scoreline. The decider map was once again a 16-13 scoreline, with the Riders winning the series 2-1 in the end.
Considering the tournament is played in a single-elimination format, this means that TYLOO is already eliminated, but the Chinese squad will no doubt hope to compete on European soil as soon as possible as appearances at the biggest events have proved to be elusive so far in 2022.
On the other hand, Movistar Riders will be moving on to the semi-final of the $250,000 event, where they will be facing the winners of MOUZ and Falcons for a place in the grand final.
bladE’s boys move on to the semi-final
Movistar Riders started off Overpass with a pistol round win, converting it to a quick 3-0 lead. They were tested soon after and the scores were tied up 3-3, before an eco round win by the Spaniards turned the tide and enabled them to get up to an 8-3 lead. TYLOO didn’t back down however, as they started to figure out the style of their opponents, going on a streak on their own and putting the half-time score at 8-7.
The second half was a succesfull one for TYLOO, first winning the pistol and finding inroads into the Spanish defense round after round. The final nail in the coffin proved the 1v3 clutch by Zhenghao “DANK1NG” Lv, which put his team 13-9 up and out of reach of their opponents as they ended the map with a 16-13 scoreline.
Next up was Ancient, where TYLOO started off on the T side. The first half started by Movistar Riders completely dominating, going up 10-0 as TYLOO were able to find just one bomb plant in those rounds. They got themselves on the board with thre kills by YuLun “Summer” Cai, which started off a small streak of rounds for the Chinese side.
After being 3-12 down at the break, the pistol round was a must for TYLOO and they managed to do so with Kelun “SLOWLY” Sun clutching a 1v3 situation, giving his team a fighting chance. They soon reached double digits as the score read 13-10, with Movistar Riders looking dejected on their T side. In the end it was Alejandro “mopoz” Fernández-Quejo Cano who got his team over the line with some much needed multi-kills as the series moved on to the deciding map of Mirage.
mopoz got an incredible 38 kills on Ancient
TYLOO came out swinging on the final map, quickly going 5-0 up and looking comfortable in the opening exchanges. A couple of faster-paced executes got Movistar Riders some much needed momentum, and they were quick to tie up the scores at 5-5.
The back-and-forth nature of the game continued, as neither team was able to run away with the decider. A three kill round by, once again, mopoz tied up the scores at 11-11 and after many close rounds it was the Movistar Riders who finally won the map and closed out the series 2-1.
