BENGALURU: It's official. Javokhir Sindarov will be D Gukesh's challenger at the Classical World Championships later this year. The Uzbek phenom, just 20, displayed an uncommon capacity to punish all errors made by his opponents during the ongoing eight-man Candidates event, the competition from where the winner advances to the title clash.
Over the last two-and-a-half weeks in Cyprus, the 20-year-old emerged as the undisputed champion thanks to some gun chess against all players. In the penultimate round against Anish Giri, the only player who may have caught him in the final round with back-to-back wins, tried to create something but Sindarov, with black, was rock solid.
The first half of this tournament helped him gain all the momentum in the world when he went back-to-back-to-back against R Praggnanandhaa, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, the three pre-tournament favourites.
Since those hat-trick of wins, he has been happy to play within himself, wanting to preserve the advantage rather than creating chances by playing ambitious chess. With pressure on other players to force the pace, they made mistakes and Sindarov was happy to take advantage.
From an Indian perspective, R Vaishali ensured she would go into the final day on the back of a draw. She had to defend a tough position for an hour and it could have been unpleasant had Tan Zhongyi found the right continuation. A small inaccuracy allowed her to equalise and she was happy to take the draw. She faces a tough fight as the likes of Zhu Jiner and Bibisara Assaubayeva are all within touching distance.
Select results (Rd 13): Open: Anish Giri drew with Javokhir Sindarov, Hikaru Nakamura drew with Matthias Bluebaum.
Women: R Vaishali drew with Tan Zhongyi, Kateryna Lagno bt Divya Deshmukh.