Group A: Germany, Sweden through

Day one saw group A with Germany, Sweden, Indonesia and Serbia battle it out for two of the eight spots in the World Championships quarter-finals.

Markus "⁠pronax⁠" Wallsten's squad tasted their first victory in Belgrade following a swift de_inferno, where the in-game leader led his team to a 16-7 scoreline against the home nation, Serbia.

In the other match, which served to decide who would meet Sweden later on for first place in the group, Germany faced Indonesia.

As expected, Germany had little to no problems plowing through the Oceanic side, with PENTA's Timo "⁠Spiidi⁠" Richter leading the way with a whopping 1.91 rating after a 16-6 win on de_dust2.

In the elimination match, the losing sides of the previous two matches met on de_mirage.

Quite surprisingly, the Indonesian nine-round Terrorist-side was enough to finish Serbia off on the second side. This time, it was nxl's Vega "⁠soifong⁠" Tanaka on the top of the scoreboard.

In the battle for first place in group A, Germany were quite far ahead towards the beginning, as they were able to secure a very decisive 13 rounds as Counter-Terrorists.

It ended up being much closer than expected after such a scoreline, as Sweden slowly climbed back, but eventually fell short at 13-16.

The second spot in the respective group was then decided between Indonesia and Sweden. The latter secured 13 rounds on each map's first half, which allowed them to come out swinging 16-2 (de_mirage) and 16-4 (de_dust2) and secure a place in the playoffs.

With that, day one in Belgrade saw its end, tomorrow at 10:30 action continues with groups C and D. The clear favourites from France will be fighting against USA, while Belgium will duke it out with Canada.