We have monday morning here in sunny Dubai and a big day is awaiting us. Our playoffs candidates who were mentioned last night here are about to start their engines and show some top notch games today. The first matches will be starting very soon. We got together with Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson yesterday night and asked him various questions regarding the tournament he has been playing so far. Enjoy watching!

Carmac, the man behind the scenes, was so kind and answered some of our questions about the tournament so far. Guess who came around the corner? Anton 'Cooller' Singov !

Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson was able to take home his first match in the quarter finals against Michael 'mAdix' Hindersson. Advancing to the semi finals means that raphas next match will be either against Anton 'Cooller' Singov or Richard 'noctis' Gansterer. The upcoming party will be a tough and probably most thrilling match-up of the quarter finals. Alessandro 'stermy' Avallone is facing Magnus 'fox' Olsson in a best of 5. Stay tuned!

In the mean time Alessandro 'stermy' Avallone was able to beat Magnus 'fox' Olsson 3:1. Once again fox played very strong and dominated stermy on all maps except ZTN where he lost 1:3. The third match of the quarter finals, Richard 'noctis' Gansterer versus Anton 'Cooller' Singov just came to an end. The players seemed to be equally strong, the outcome was 3:2 in favour of noctis. I uploaded a snippet of their match, just that you out there get an impression how tense the atmosphere of this match is!

We caught Richard 'noctis' Gansterer for a quick interview about his match versus the allmighty Anton 'Cooller' Singov. Suss it out now!

The remaining match of the quarter finals has ended. Again it was a tense best of five, this time between Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky and Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty. The so-called American maps T7 and T9 went in favour of DaHanG whereas Cypher picked up his game again on the oldschool maps ZTN, DM13 and DM6. The parties are now drawn for the semi-finals with the following encounters!

SK.Rapha vs. v\noctis Match Information
srs.Cypher vs mousesports|fox Match Information

The first party, rapha against noctis, will be starting about 15:00CET. History is repeating itself here since this encounter already happened at the Extreme Masters Global Challenge in Cologne, Germany. For more information, click this Match Information.

Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson made a stand against Richard 'noctis' Gansterer and came out as the stronger player of the tournament here in Dubai. Shane showed his predominant skills on DM13, T7 and T9. Therefor he moves to the Grand Finals where he will be facing either Magnus 'fox' Olsson or Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky, who are fighting for their slot this very moment.

Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky took on Magnus 'fox' Olsson sucessfully on the maps T9, ZTN, T9 and DM13. It started off quite unlucky for Cypher as he lost T9, nevertheless he crowed over fox on the remaining maps. This what the Belorussian winner had to say about the outcome.



And here the last seconds of his match against fox.



Up next is the third place decider Magnus 'fox' Olsson versus Richard 'noctis' Gansterer and afterwards the Grand Final, where Cypher will be facing Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson.

The third place decider ended in favour of Richard 'noctis' Gansterer. Noctis dominated on the maps T9, T7 & DM13 which secured him bronze. Magnus 'fox' Olsson struggled most of the time and had trouble to find his game. The Austrian underdog therefor managed it under the top 3 and is taking home 800$.
The grand final is about to start. Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky and Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson were just interviewed by the ESL and are now settiung up their computers. This game will be intense, so hold on tight!

Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson wins against Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky in (as promised) a very tough and intense match. Rapha took the lead in the first two maps ZTN and T7 yet unfortunately lost DM6 to Cypher. The fourth map in the game which was T9 was probably the most intense and thrilling map of the whole tournament. Rapha stayed calm and took 5 kills whereas Cypher managed 3.