"We were playing a bit tense"- Sentinels' johnqt after their defeat against Gen.G at Valorant Champions 2024 (Exclusive)

Valorant Champions 2024 has finally commenced, and the 16 qualified teams will now be battling for the title of world champion this season. They will first go through a Group Stage and then the Playoffs. Both stages will be conducted in a double-elimination format.

Day 1 opened with a match between Americas' number four seed, Sentinels, and Pacific's number one seed, Gen.G. Both teams faced each other before in an incredibly close Grand Final in VCT Masters Madrid. Hence, the Bo3 (Best-of-three) series was expected to deliver a similar matchup; however, it was over quicker than expected as Gen.G were able to walk away with a clean 2-0 win.

In the post-match conference, Sportskeeda Esports' Sneh Jadhav got the chance to talk to Sentinels' johnqt during which he said:

"We were playing a bit tense."

Sentinels' johnqt talks about their defeat against Gen.G in the opening match of Valorant Champions 2024

Sentinels started out the year with impressive performances that led to their Kickoff and Masters Madrid win. However, the team has been struggling to put up the same level of performance ever since. In fact, they barely managed to qualify for Valorant Champions 2024 through the championship points system.

Despite their recent performances, Sentinels are still considered a very strong team. Hence, their opening match against Gen.G was expected to be a lot closer; but unfortunately, that was not the case. Gen.G vs Sentinels was dominated by the former at every point and ran away with the series by getting a 2-0 win.

During the post-match conference, Sportskeeda Esports approached Sentinels' IGL (In-game leader), johnqt to ask him about what according to him went wrong that led to the very one-sided outcome.

Here's what he said:

"On Haven, we lost a lot of close rounds on attack that we should have closed out: In pistol, all their clutches that were in our favor, we were playing a bit tense in those situations where we should have played with more confidence. Then, in defense, we also needed to play with a bit more confidence and speak. I felt like that was kinda like the story for both games."

With this loss, Sentinels will be moving to the lower bracket of Valorant Champions 2024. Their next match will be very crucial as one more loss will result in their elimination from the event.

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