jL: "I got into a rabbit hole of negative thinking after the first day and I couldn't come back"

Disappointed with his individual performance, jL took responsibility for NAVI's early elimination from the Perfect World Shanghai Major.

Natus Vincere's hopes of a Major title defense came to an end after a disappointing run through the Elimination Stage. The giants entered the elimination zone on day two on the back of losses to MIBR and Spirit and couldn't recover, a 1-2 loss to HEROIC in the playoffs-qualification match ending their season on a whimper.

In an interview with HLTV following their elimination, a disappointed Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius took responsibility for the result. The Lithuanian averaged a 0.90 rating over eight maps, a far cry from the level he showed for most of the year.

"For sure deserved. Maybe the boys didn't deserve it as much, but I played a horrible tournament, I think one of my worst tournaments ever," jL said.

"I got into a rabbit hole of negative thinking after the first day and I couldn't come back. This was the only game where I felt like a fraction of myself, but it just wasn't enough."

"CS-wise, I feel like we tried our best. We put a lot of effort into the game, we tried to improve on everything that we have, but somehow it wasn't enough," he went on. "It felt like we had everything under control on the preparation side. The results were speaking different."

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Commiserations, jL, I'm sure it's not the result you would have wanted to end the season. What's going through your head?

For sure deserved... Maybe the boys didn't deserve it as much, but I played a horrible tournament, I think it's one of my worst tournaments ever, in terms of decision-making, shooting, all those things. I got into a rabbit hole of negative thinking after the first day and I couldn't come back.

This was the only game where I felt like a fraction of myself, but it just wasn't enough.

It looked like after that Nuke return you would actually be able to close it down. The beginning of Ancient went well, but then at the end of the first half it all went the other way. What went wrong today?

We were leading 6-1 or 5-1 and one clutch didn't go our way, one round we just read them wrong, and they kinda snowballed us. We lost one round and we were down three or four thousand, not enough for a full buy even though we were leading, so the rounds were close, there was that one at the start.

We ended the half 6-6, which looks like a loss because the CT side is where we shine the best on Ancient. We had to climb back on the T side, we lost the pistol, the anti-force, the first full buy, magically won the Mihai round, and at 9-7 it could have been anyone's game, and I don't remember what happened after that.

Tell me about this results overall. Not the level you would have expected - what went wrong and what are the learnings from the Major going to the break?

CS-wise, I feel like we tried our best. We put a lot of effort into the game, we tried to improve on everything that we have, but somehow it wasn't enough. We prepared a lot. It's really weird to me, maybe the individuals didn't step up - well, I mean, of course I didn't step up (smiles), but it felt like we had everything under control on the preparation side. The results were speaking different, and it just didn't go as we wanted.