NE SPORTS BUREAU
CHENNAI, JAN 17
Indian chess teen sensation R. Praggnanandhaa shocked world champion Ding Liren of China in the fourth round clash at the 2024 Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands.
🇮🇳 Praggnanandhaa beats World Champion 🇨🇳 Ding Liren with the black pieces in the fourth round of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament! @rpraggnachess has overtaken Vishy Anand in the live ratings and is temporarily India's #1 player. Will he maintain his lead and become India's… pic.twitter.com/KWXnM6SBH7
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) January 17, 2024
Tremendously proud of your achievement, Pragg. What an astonishing moment, defeating the reigning World Champion Ding Liren of China and becoming India's top-rated player. This is truly a proud moment for our nation! @rpraggnachess #TataSteelChess https://t.co/2ZSEbtZ9Ke
— Gautam Adani (@gautam_adani) January 17, 2024
The win also helped the 18-year-old surpass five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand as the country’s number one chess player, as per the FIDE’s live ratings with a rating of 2748.3—Anand’s is 2748.
It's a privilege to support Praggnanandhaa as he continues to win laurels in the world of chess and make India proud. His success is an inspiration to countless young Indians to believe that nothing is more gratifying than standing on the podium to celebrate our nation's… pic.twitter.com/8AjEFeVWN0
— Gautam Adani (@gautam_adani) January 5, 2024
Praggnanandhaa thus became the second Indian after Anand to defeat a reigning world champion in classical chess.
It was Praggnanandhaa’s first win in four rounds at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament this year, after three draws. Interestingly, last year on the same day, he had defeated then world number 2 Ding Liren with black pieces at the same event.
Praggnanandhaa said he was surprised with the outcome as he didn’t expect the world champion to get ousted in such a fashion.
“I felt I equalized very easily and then somehow things started to go wrong for him. Even after I won the pawn I felt it should be holdable,” Praggnanandhaa was quoted as saying by Chess.com.
“I think any day, if you beat such a strong player, it’s always special because it’s not very easy to beat them. The first time winning against a world champion in classical chess feels good,” he added.
Praggnanandhaa is currently third in the tournament standings.
Praggnanandhaa, who started playing at the tender age of 5, went on to become India’s youngest and the then world’s second-youngest Grandmaster at age 12 in 2018.
He is the fifth-youngest person ever to achieve the title of Grandmaster after Abhimanyu Mishra, Sergey Karjakin, Gukesh D and Javokhir Sindarov. Incidentally, his elder sister R Vaishali is also a Grandmaster, which makes the siblings the world’s first-ever brother-sister GM duo.