Neither Evil Geniuses' Paul "czm" Nelson or SK-Gaming's John "ZeRo4" Hill will participate in Athens next month for the ESWC Masters. Nelson, a Princeton undergrad, current CalTech grad student and mathematical genius, forgot to sign-up in time.

"I'm bummed I wont get the opportunity to conclude my triumphant 2008 comeback," Nelson says with a smirk. "I was saving up for Athens, I didn't want to reveal my secrets at those other tournaments."

Nelson is coming off three eighth place finishes in this year's Quake 3 season at the ESWC Masters of Paris, GameGune, and most recently at the ESWC Grand Finals. Before this year, Nelson had never finished below 5th in any major LAN event. Athens looks to be one of, if not the last event of this year's Quake 3 season.

"I had thought of applying but didn't know the deadline was coming up", says Nelson. "I was busy all weekend and didn't check when it was until today, which was too late."

While several players have dropped from each of the previous ESWC events, Nelson hasn't decided if he will apply to fill in for those who may drop. He cites fairness issues to those who applied on time, such as Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager and Sebastian "Spart1e" Siira, who did not get selected to the final player list. He's also pretty lazy.

"Gah, so much effort. You can write to ESWC on my behalf, and then include this post in it."

Hill, who has been performing better than Nelson this season, has declined to participate due to work obligations. Hill has taken on a job at a large advanced technology company and does not currently have the time necessary to compete at the highest level.

With Hill and Nelson absent, Hill's teammate, Shane "rapha" Hendrixson and Nelson's teammate, Chance "chance" Lacina, are the two Americans left with a chance of bringing home gold to the USA. Nelson, who knocked out both Lacina and himself in San Jose, sees more destruction to come in Athens.

"I predict rapha will blunder his way through the second group stage only to pull it together and trounce chance 2-0 in his final round, thereby eliminating both. It's only fitting."