CHENNAI: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand will mentor the Indian team that will take part in the Asian Games at Hangzhou, China from September 10, 2022.
Eyeing the four gold medals at stake in the games, the legendary Anand has agreed to play the role of mentor and his first session with the players will kick start from next Thursday. With just eight months left for the event to start, the All India Chess Federation has begun preparations as it is keen that the Indian contingent has a rich medal haul when the chess discipline returns to the Asian Games fold after 12 years.
It may be recalled that in the 2010 Guangzhou Games India managed to bag only two bronze medals. The All India Chess Federation, in order to better that tally and give the players ample time to prepare, has selected ten probables in both the men and women's segment.
The team has been selected on the basis of their international rating and Vidit Gujarathi, P Harikrishna, Nihal Sarin, S L Narayanan, K Sasikiran, B Adhiban, Karthikeyan Murali, Arjun Erigaisi, Abhijeet Gupta and Surya Shekhar Ganguly made the cut in the men's team, while the women team will be selected from K Humpy, D Harika, Vaishali R, Tania Sachdev, Bhakti Kulkarni, Vantika Agrawal, Mary Ann Gomes, Soumya Swaminathan and Eesha Karavade.
The selection committee consisting of Abhijit Kunte, Dibeyandu Barua and Dinesh Sharma will decide the final list of five players in the month of April. The chess event of the games will start on September 11 and will be played in two formats. The individual event of men and women will be played in rapid time control from September 11 to 14. Meanwhile, the four-board five-member team event will be played under standard time control from September 16 to 24.