tabseN: "For us, it's about grinding back to the top 20, I'd say; It's not far away"

The biggest tournament favourites in Chennai for the Skyesports Chennai Esports Global Championship 2025, BIG, kicked off their campaign with a 2-0 win over Nemesis. On paper it was a clean win from the score-line but BIG were pushed a bit on both maps and it is something their veteran star, tabseN, acknowledged.

Speaking to Dust2 India after BIG's win over Nemesis, tabseN spoke about the Nemesis game, BIG's transitional period, goals ahead and his experience in India so far.

Tell me about the game, because from what I felt, the game went a lot closer than it should have?

Yeah definitely, we felt the same. We threw a lot of man-advantage situations. We had a lot of information, but we overpeeked. I think in the beginning of the tournament it's okay. In the end, there will be much better opponents, and there we need to have much better discipline, and also close out the rounds, which is really important. But in the end, we closed the game and that's what matters.

You also lost gr1ks right before this tournament. If he was here, how different could the score lines have looked?

Yeah, much different. Nothing against JBOEN but we played more with gr1ks. He is also individually much sharp. At the moment, he is individually really really good. But I am happy that we just closed it out. The opponents also played really good Counter-Strike. They have played for a long time, so it's important that we win.

BIG recently benched Krimbo, which did spark a controversy. Would you like to comment on that?

I think at the moment, no. It is too fresh.

There are obviously a lot of German fans waiting for BIG to make top 10 again. What would you like to say to them?

The message is always the same, thank you guys for supporting us. I know it's been rough. For us, it's about grinding back to the top 20, I'd say. It's not far away. We are grinding a lot at the moment. And it's the tournament we are looking forward to, it's India, and we are looking for a championship under our belt. After that we will see, and hopefully make it work. But as I said, it's been rough for the German Counter-Strike scene, but also for the BIG organisation, and also for the team, and individual players. Everyone has had a rough period, but we are looking to get out of this. And hopefully we will make it.

Your next game is against Arise; have you seen them play? How do you expect the game to go?

To be honest, I didn't see anything of them. We are just playing like we did before. We just focus on ourself. We need to close against these teams. Nothing against these teams but we just have better expectations. And this is what we are expecting. We will just play our game. We will not underestimate them and just close out it out.

And finally, how has your stay in India been like so far?

I am really surprised. The people are really friendly. The hotel is also nice. Also the arena and the organisation. They put a lot of efforts so we have a nice stay here. They have done a really good job. Hopefully there will be more people in the arena in the next days, but other than that, the stay has been nice.