9z suffered a technical defeat at the CS Asia Championships 2025: Americas Open Qualifier because a player slept through the match

One of the most unexpected technical results of the season occurred in the qualifiers for CS Asia Championships 2025. The Argentine team 9z Team received a technical defeat in the match against Fluxo because their sniper Luken ... overslept the game.

What happened?
The match was scheduled to take place on August 17 in a Best-of-3 format. The teams were supposed to determine the winner, but that never happened: 9z was unable to field a full roster, and the organizers awarded a forfeit to Fluxo .

The reason turned out to be extremely unusual: Luken missed the game because he fell asleep after taking a sedative. The player himself explained the situation on social media:

I'm really stressed out about some personal stuff, I took a pill to calm down and ended up falling asleep far away from my cell phone. Who knows if I turned off the alarms while I was asleep. That's all there is to it. I'm very sad about this and all I can do is take responsibility for what happened. I'm sorry.
Luca " Luken " Nadotti

Qualification context
For 9z, this defeat was a painful blow: the team had already confidently passed the first rounds of qualification, defeating Game Hunters (13:6) and 2Game Esports (13:3). In the quarterfinals, they also left their opponents no chance, but in the semifinals against Fluxo , force majeure decided everything.

Thus, Fluxo automatically advanced to the final, and 9z lost their chance to compete for a slot in the championship.

What can be said about Luken ?
It is worth noting that despite this incident, Luken remains the main driving force behind 9z. Over the past three months, he has played 55 maps with an average rating of 7.0, being a key killer and one of the most stable players on the team. His form allowed fans to count on the team's participation in the CS Asia Championships 2025, and it was all the more surprising that the chance was lost due to a personal mistake.

The situation seems funny, but at the same time, it reminds us of the enormous pressure that professional esports players are under. Psychological problems, stress, and constant tournaments force players to look for ways to calm down, and sometimes this leads to unexpected consequences.

Luken 's story will become another one of those anecdotal stories that the CS2 scene will live on, but at the same time, it is a lesson: even the strongest players are human, and sometimes one small thing can ruin an entire qualification.