On December 14th 2024, G2 Esports qualified for the semi-finals at the Perfect World Shanghai Major after an intense game against HEROIC. Although G2 were the favorites to win, HEROIC got the better of them at the start, taking the first map 13-6 on Ancient. The momentum continued on map 2, Nuke, where HEROIC put up a dominant CT side in the first half. However, it was almost as if a switch flipped in Nikola "NiKo" Kovač in the second half as he took matters into his own hand.
NiKo put up a stellar performance on the team’s T side, putting up a 3.44 rating performance to close out the map 13-9. Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa entered the fray with NiKo on the final map, Mirage as they battled it out over intense rounds, eventually winning the series in overtime 16-13. One could say that it was NiKo’s courage to stand up for his team that inspired his teammates to follow suit and close out the series. NiKo spoke to HLTV in a post-match interview to talk about what was perhaps the best performance out of him so far in the Major.
What did NiKo say?
When asked about what happened on Ancient, NiKo said: “I don't really know what happened on Ancient. We lost some crucial rounds, such as the retake on A — if we had won that round it would have been a different story. The bigger issue is we went too confident into the game, like we were... I don't want to say relaxed, but we just felt comfortable and confident. It was not enough effort from us as a team even though we had some good starts to the rounds, some good reads, we knew where they were going a couple of times but we didn't manage to close out the rounds.”
When asked about how he suddenly turned up and started dominating the server, NiKo said: “I didn't even remember what was happening to be honest (laughs). But I really didn't want to lose that game, I felt like I needed to be there for my team, and I'm happy I managed to step up. I just showed disrespect to them, I was just running and overpeeking everything. I felt like we needed to show them we had bigger balls than them and this time it worked.“
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