Veteran Street Fighter pro Keita “Fuudo” Ai has won the Japanese eSports Grand Prix tournament for Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, defeating Tsunehiro “gachikun” Kanamori in the best-of-two grand final.

At the start of the final day of competition, Fuudo was able to avenge his CPT Asia East online qualifier loss to his teammate and Street Fighter legend, Daigo “The Beast” Umehara. Fuudo then defeated 2019 Evo champion Masato “Bonchan” Takahashi to secure his spot at the grand final.

Meanwhile, 2018 Capcom Cup champion gachikun had an unbelievable lower bracket run, where he defeated Naoki “Moke” Nakayama, Higuchi, Daigo, and his Red Bull teammate, Bonchan.

Gachikun won the first two rounds in convincing fashion. He blitzed Fuudo’s Poison by dashing in after each hard knockdown he landed. Gachikun was then able to take the first game by trapping Fuudo in the corner.

With Gachikun one game away from winning the tournament, Fuudo utilized Poison’s superior mid-range attacks and stopped Gachikun’s forward pressure. By capitalizing on Gachikun’s punishable attacks, Fuudo earned himself a perfect round.

The perfect round caused Gachikun to lose pace of the matchup. And Fuudo used the following round to extend his lead by dashing in, which caught Gachikun by surprise. Fuudo’s close and mid range attacks helped him even the series 1-1.



Fuudo went a step further by playing more recklessly, and used wakeup attacks against Gachikun. With his back against the wall, Gachikun went for wake up dragon punches that were easily blocked and punished by Fuudo.

Fuudo won the tournament with a near-perfect round, landing continuous ex moves that filled Gachikun’s stun gauge.

By winning the Japan Esports Grand Prix, Fuudo was awarded 1 million yen (US$9,480) and will be representing Japan at the Esports Championship East Asia tournament, which will be held in Korea later this year.

Watch the final day of the competition here:

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