PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is set to face e-sports giant China in the semi-final of tomorrow’s Dota 2 tournament at the Asian Games following a 2-0 victory against Saudi Arabia in today’s quarter-final.
According to a report in Sin Chew Daily, it took Malaysia’s representatives a tough three-hour battle to secure victory over their opponents in a best-of-three format tie at the China Hangzhou Esports Centre today.
Malaysia, the only seeded team from Southeast Asia, will now face China in tomorrow’s semi-final after the latter went past Thailand 2-0 in their last-eight tie.
Malaysia meets China in the semi-final at 9am tomorrow.
The other quarter-final ties will see Kazakhstan take on Mongolia, and Nepal face Kyrgyzstan.
Video games such as “Counter-Strike” and “Dota 2” have been highly popular over the past decade, leading to the creation of e-sports as an event at sporting tournaments – which has filled stadiums and attracted millions of online viewers.
E-sports is making its debut as a medal event at this year’s Asian Games after being featured as a demonstration sport at the last edition in Palembang-Jakarta in 2018.
A total of 14 teams are participating in the Dota 2 event at the Asian Games and only five are seeded teams – they get to start directly in the quarter-finals as opposed to playing group stage games.
Malaysia is represented by Chan Kok Hong, Cheng Jin Xiang, Thiay Jun Wen, Tue Soon Chuan, Yap Jian Wei, and Ng Wei Poong.
On Tuesday, Malaysia won an e-sports silver medal after losing to China 2-0 in Arena of Valor, the mobile-based strategy game developed by TiMi Studio Group.
