Fatal1ty Captures 10th Major PC Gaming Championship—Champ Sweeps Final Match to Take CPL Summer Championship; Comebacks Dominate Path to Decisive Victory

(GRAPEVINE, TX)—Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, the world’s best known professional PC gamer, has captured first place, and his 10th major championship, worth $15,000, at the US stop of the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) World Tour. “The Cyberathlete Extreme Summer Championships 2005”, held at the Gaylord Texan Resort near Dallas, Texas from July 6 through July 10, attracted over 7,000 gamers from 60 countries. The US stop was the fifth of ten stops on the CPL World Tour, which culminates with the $500,000 World Tour Championship Finals to be contested this November in New York City.

Fatal1ty was undefeated in all six matches during his march to the CPL Summer Championship. He was down by 1 game in three of the rounds before rallying to win all of his best of 3 matches. In the first game of the finals, he fell behind 7 to 0 against Sander “VoO” Kaasjager before coming back to win 12 to 11. Needing just one game to clinch the title, Fatal1ty opened the second game of the match on fire, with a dominating run of 22 to 0, leading to the sweep and decisive victory to take home the CPL Summer Championship 2005 title.

“I’m so happy to make the breakthrough and win a major championship playing Painkiller,” says Wendel. “The hard work and intense training schedule paid off by beating a very tough, International field.”

Fatal1ty now holds 10 Major Championship titles, doing so while competing in 5 different games - an achievement held by no other gamer. Adding to his professional career totals, Fatal1ty has now finished in the top three an amazing 52 times, with 39 first place finishes while competing in 57 pro tournaments. This is his first major championship playing the game “Painkiller.”

The CPL World Tour now moves on to Leipzig, Germany where it will be held in conjunction with the Games Convention from August 19th through the 21st.

About Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel
Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel first got involved in professional video game tournaments when he heard about CPL’s Frag3 tournament that took place in October 1999. He placed third at that event - two weeks later he was invited to represent the USA in Stockholm, Sweden, where he went undefeated, winning all 18 maps against the top players in the world. From that point forward, the world’s first full time professional PC gamer has continued to dominate competitions all over the world, including the United States, Singapore, Korea, Brazil, Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Russia.

He won the CPL Winter Championship in December 2002 playing the popular Unreal Tournament 2K3, a victory which made him the only three time CPL Champion of the Year – winning that title while playing a different game each year. At QuakeCon 2004, Fatal1ty electrified the crowd with his dominating victory at the DOOM 3 Inaugural 1v1 Championship, capturing $25,000 in first place prize money. For more information about Fatal1ty, visit www.fatal1ty.com.